


THE CARNIVAL SAGA

by VoyaMariner



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fingerfucking, First Time, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:26:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 40,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1989753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoyaMariner/pseuds/VoyaMariner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Some Like It Hot!<br/>Should Love be hot, sizzling, romantic and explicit? Then this story is for YOU!<br/>No underage reading if you please; this is strictly for over 18.</p>
  <p>
    <i>…“Feel like playing games?” There was a malicious glint in his eyes, and the smile on his thin lips was more vicious than mocking now. “The stakes are so much higher this time than the last time we had a go at it, you realise that, don’t you?” He looked intently into her eyes as if seeking the answer there…</i>
  </p>
  <p> </p>
  <p>Text copyright 2001 - 2014 by Thomcats aka VoyaMariner. All rights reserved.<br/>July 2014 Thomcats VoyaMariner.</p>
  <p> </p>
  <p>= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = </p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. CARNIVAL IN VENICE

**CARNIVAL IN VENICE**

Sarah looked out through the hotel window and glanced at the sky. It was overcast but not raining. She had already realized that Venice in February was a rather chilly place, and she was very glad that she had brought her cashmere woolen overcoat along. "Maybe that's why they have their carnival at this dismal time of the year when it is neither winter nor spring," she mused. The ongoing carnival certainly provided the city with a glittering and slightly mad framework. The days and the evenings were full of events, beautiful parades, open air theater, special music and dance shows, art exhibitions and parties all over town.

Sarah was in Venice on a special scholarship attending courses on the Commedia dell'Arte Theater. It was really a dream come true. She had hardly been able to believe her luck when the application had gone through. Then came the hard part of convincing Dad and Karen that she was old enough to be on her own in Italy.

"Dad, I'm twenty years old, and I already have an independent life at college," she had persuaded her father.

It was trickier with Karen, who absolutely refused to even consider her going at first.

"You have never been abroad before. You can't compare it in any way with college here in the States."

"But, listen, I'm not going to be on my own. I'm going to attend classes, there will be other students and teachers," Sarah had pleaded.

Finally, her stepmother had given in but only after a lengthy contact with the international college, which organized the programs, and after herself choosing the student hotel where Sarah was to stay for her sojourn in Venice. Karen had also taken the initiative to contact the family of another student from Sarah's college, who was going to Venice at the same time, and it was agreed upon that the two girls should stay at the same hotel.

Sarah, who knew Frances only by sight before their leaving for Europe together, found that Frances was a quiet, dreamy and easygoing companion, and she didn't disturb Sarah in any way. Sarah also found that she enjoyed having someone in the foreign city to share her meals and evenings with, at least in the beginning. Soon enough Sarah had a lot of new student friends from all over the world, and both her days and evenings were by now very busy.

Sarah and Frances had already attended a couple of private parties in Venice, invited by Italians, who themselves were engaged in either the international college or the theaters in the city. It had been an exhilarating experience. As everyone's burning interest was the theater, the party often started out with a play enacted in the courtyard of an old house or palace. No other stage setting or props were necessary. Sarah saw "Romeo and Juliet" for the first time in such a surrounding, and it was pure magic.

In the beginning, Sarah had faithfully written home about everything that happened to her, but as the hectic weeks bore on, her letters became more and more summary; she certainly didn’t entertain her father and stepmother with accounts of parties that ended in the wee morning hours and if telling about an especially interesting museum or sight she had visited outside Venice, she didn't reveal that the visit had included an overnight in the country together with friends.

**********

This morning she had decided to go shopping before classes began. She had promised to find something special for Toby. Toby, now six years old, had been heartbroken when she left. Italy might as well have been the end of the world. He couldn't even imagine how far away it was; Sarah had had to comfort him endlessly, promising to call him and speak to him over the phone when she arrived in Venice, all to reassure him of that she was still alive.

"You are not going into the Underground again?" he had wailed in real fear.

And Sarah had felt a pang of uneasiness and fear herself. Since their joint adventure in the Labyrinth, she had come to feel very close to Toby, and she loved her little brother with a protective, almost motherly love. She felt as if she was the only one in the whole world, who was able to protect him from all the evil that lurked out there.

When Toby first had mentioned the Labyrinth and their ordeal there, Sarah had been greatly alarmed and confused. How could he remember anything about what had happened to him there? He was but a baby at the time? In the end, she accepted that Toby did indeed remember, and she concluded that the Labyrinth had put its eternal mark on Toby as well as on her. She also became aware of that it was only to her that Toby ever mentioned the Labyrinth. It was their secret not to be shared with anyone else.

Sarah wrapped her coat around her and grabbed her books and bags and left the hotel in a hurry. She didn't intend to return until later in the afternoon. It had started to rain after all, and she cursed herself for forgetting the umbrella. Maybe if she took refuge in her favorite church nearby for a little while until the rain stopped?

She had found this little church just by accident one day when — feeling the urgent need just to be alone for a while — she had ducked in there to avoid an unwanted encounter. It wasn't a place that tourists visited; hard to determine what style it was built in, rebuilt and redecorated countless of times, but it suited her needs for privacy. She could sit down in a corner, well hidden behind Gothic pillars and not be seen by anyone. At the altar, there was a beautiful statue of Maria with the Jesus child that, in a way, reminded her of herself and Toby. So she had made it a habit to go into this church almost every day just to collect her thoughts and to contemplate. Now she made her way cautiously through the aisle not to disturb the few worshippers, who were around at this time of the day, and she sank gratefully down on the bench and finally allowed herself to think about Jareth.

**********

Sarah remembered feeling so strong and exhilarated just after having returned from the Underground, reveling in the thought of having defeated him at his game. But after a while this feeling wore off and was replaced with a nagging uncertainty. She saw her friends Hoggles, Ludo and Sir Didymus often enough, but no one ever mentioned Jareth's name. Soon it became an obsession to her to know about him, to know what he was doing. She started to ask furtive questions but only got evasive answers.

When yet a year had passed, she confronted herself with the truth and admitted that Jareth was constantly in her mind, and she realized that he, in his own way, had defeated her. She was no longer dictating the conditions for their relationship — if there was a relationship worth mentioning.

Suddenly she started to feel his presence around her. She didn't see him or hear him, but she was absolutely sure of that he was around. And she would never forget the night when he finally reappeared.

It was an unusually dark and dismal night. A storm was raging outside, and she was alone with Toby in the house. Dad and Karen were away for the weekend visiting friends. Sarah felt anguish and anxiety and found it totally impossible to sleep. She had stayed up by the fire in the living room reading a book but couldn't concentrate. Finally, she threw the book aside and went to the window. The rain was pouring down outside. She put both her hands against the window pane and whispered fretfully

"Jareth?" — "Jareth, are you there? Why don't you show yourself to me?"

And at that very moment she could see him reflected in the glass.

She got so immensely scared that she lost her balance and fell to the floor. When she had recovered her composure, she looked around, and her eyes fell on a pair of black, high-heeled boots. As her eyes traveled upwards, she saw his legs covered in skintight black leather, a billowing cream-white silk shirt underneath his cape of black feathers, and finally she saw his face surrounded with his wild, spiky, shoulder-length, blonde hair. He regarded her coolly with an amused air, and his lips were curled into his ever-present mocking but gentle smile.

"Missed me?" It was more a statement than a question really.

"Why can't you leave me alone?" she cried out in exasperation.

"But really, Sarah," he laughed softly and lowered himself to her level, sitting down leaning back on his heels. "Don't you think that is a pretty wild accusation under the circumstances? What do you mean that I’ve done during the last year that has been such a bother to you? I must say that I have done nothing but kept away."

Sarah began to cry, "You are here all the time. I want you to leave me alone!!"

"Is that why you called me just now?" At which Sarah cried even harder.

Jareth tsked gently and began drying her tears with his gloved hand, and finally he brought out a big handkerchief in silk with lace trimmings, gave it to her and made her blow her nose. At last she calmed down enough to be able to look at him and talk to him.

"I can't stop thinking about you," she admitted at last and observed for a fleeting moment that her remark triggered an expression in his eyes that she couldn't interpret.

"Do you blame me for that?" he ventured cautiously.

"Yes," she said defiantly "I do think that you are doing this to me on purpose!"

He laughed softly. "You overestimate me and underestimate yourself."

When she looked as if she was starting to cry again, he rose to his feet, took hold of her gently but firmly, lifted her effortlessly in his arms and carried her to the bedroom. Sarah got frantic for a moment not knowing what he was about to do and began beating his chest with her clenched fists.

"Come, come now. Stop playing around. It is definitely time for bed," he admonished and secured her hands with one of his.

She relaxed at last and let him slip her between the sheets. He tucked the blanket around her and sat down beside her on the bed.

"I will never harm you, you must believe that," he murmured soothingly like a lullaby in her ear and began stroking her thick, dark hair.

Sarah felt drowsy and sleepy as a feeling of warmth emanating from him enveloped her. When he rose to leave, she felt panic again and reached out for him, grabbing hold of his arm.

"Please, don't go yet," she pleaded, and she could feel him hesitate for a fraction of a second.

Then he lay down beside her on the bed, on top of the covers. He put his arms around her. She permitted herself to let go and just indulge in his nearness, hiding behind the fact that she was almost asleep and no longer could be held entirely responsible for her acts. She nuzzled her nose into his silk shirt and deeply inhaled the scent of his skin. It was intoxicatingly sweet, and she started to tingle all over; that was the last thing she was conscious of before falling asleep.

When Sarah woke up next morning, she thought that everything that had happened to her the previous night had been a dream — until she found the silk handkerchief under her pillow. She had then to admit to herself that he had been there, in her room in her bed. The revelation left her shaky and bewildered. She waited for him to appear again the next night, but he didn't come. She heard nothing from him and saw nothing of him for several weeks, and she was despairing again.

Then, one brilliant sunny afternoon, when she sought relief from the sultry heat under the big trees in the garden, all of a sudden he was there, standing in front of her, looking as cool and unperturbed as ever. When she asked where he had been all the time since their last meeting, he merely stated that he had been busy, not elaborating on the subject. She felt a pang of jealousy and wondered to herself, whether he had been occupied with more zealous and silly young girls in his Labyrinth, who had wished away their brothers. But when she saw a faint knowing, wicked glimmer in his eyes, she got the uneasy feeling that he could read her mind, and she tried desperately to think of something neutral; she sought to get through to him, but he was absent-minded, haughty and rather unpleasant during the entire visit and when he left, she wondered dismally why he had shown up at all. The next days she was dejected and depressed, and Karen thought that she was ill and wanted her to see a doctor. Sarah refused however and crouched stubbornly like a wounded animal in her room, suffering through sleepless nights with hot, dry eyes, burning from unshed tears.

When she thought that she could stand no more of this and had to find a way to end it, he came to her room one night a week later and lay down beside her on the bed. For fear of him disappearing again if she made a false move, she didn't dare say a word, but merely turned towards him and touched his face, just to make sure he was real. She traced the outlines of his fine-boned features, feeling that he had shut his eyes and that his mouth was not smiling. He caught her hand and kissed her fingertips lightly. Then he wrapped his arms around her and sighed in her hair. The hard knot in her chest untied, and blood began to pulsate again through her whole body. She sank into her relief as if going down into a coma, and she almost instantly fell asleep without having uttered a word to him.

He came back to her during several nights like this. Sarah reached the point of not being able to go to sleep if he wasn't there, holding his arms around her. ‘He is becoming an addiction to me,' she thought to herself. Then he was gone again for more than a month before turning up the next time, on this occasion full of mocking glee and mischief.

So, Sarah saw a pattern develop, and she could do nothing of her own will to change it. Jareth came and went into her life just as he pleased. He didn't inform her about his comings and goings, and the mood he was in when he appeared, was totally unpredictable. Sarah became very apprehensive, never knowing from one moment to the other whether she was going to meet an ice-cold, wicked stare or a soft, amused gleam from his mismatched eyes; whether he was going to taunt and ridicule her or wrap his arms around her for comfort.

By the time her application for the scholarship went through around Christmas, Sarah hadn't been in contact with Jareth for over a month, and she didn't see him or hear from him before she left for Europe. In Venice, she was so busy with all new impressions and everything new happening to her that she didn't think about Jareth at first. But he gradually returned to her thoughts, and she started to wonder whether he knew that she was in Italy and decide after a while that if he was capable of reading her mind and appear and disappear at will, he must surely know that she was here by now. 

A week earlier in a record shop in the center of Venice, she became acutely aware of his presence again. She had sauntered in there and was browsing through the CDs trying to find some soft and relaxing music that would help her go to sleep at night, when the shop assistant, at the request of a customer, put on a CD to be played over the shop's loudspeaker system. She instantly recognized Queen and their beautiful song "Who Wants To Live Forever?", and she felt as if something hard hit her in the chest. She knew with certainty that Jareth was around somewhere nearby and that he wanted to make his presence known to her. She couldn't explain to herself why she knew for certain that it was a message from him; she couldn't either have explained it to anyone else without sounding ridiculous. She just knew with every fiber in her body that it was so.

Since that day a week ago, she had had a fever in her body, a terrible unrest that made her look for him everywhere. Why didn't he show himself to her?

**********

Sarah opened her eyes again and looked up into the church ceiling, far above her head. She threw a glance at her watch and realized that she had been sitting there almost an hour, lost in her thoughts. She sighed and decided that she would have to postpone looking for presents for Toby to another day. If she didn't leave now, she would be late for class. She left the comforting stillness of the church and went out into the street. Luckily, it had stopped raining. She ran to catch the next vaporetto that would take her downtown.

Almost out of breath Sarah came running into the courtyard of the institution, where today's lecture was going to take place. She rushed up to the benches where the other students were already sitting waiting and dropped down beside Frances, who had kept a seat for her.

"You're late!" Frances whispered exasperated.

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry but I was delayed at the hotel" Sarah lied avoiding eye contact.

Class today was going to be a demonstration of how the Commedia dell'Arte Theater had made its influence over the Mime Theater, and a group of Italian mimes was going to enact a classic comedy from the Commedia repertoire in their own way. Signor Bertoldi, one of the teachers at the international college and their special instructor, moved in front of the group to introduce the actors and the play.

It proved to be a magical afternoon as the age-old story of love and deceit unraveled before them. Pedrolino was forever crying under a tree because his beloved Columbina only had eyes for the dashing Arlechino, who in his turn was only interested in how to get the most out of Pantalone before his employer Il Capitano found out that Arlechino was beating him to the fortune. Frances, who was particularly fascinated by Mime Theater, sat entranced through the performance and didn't observe Sarah fidgeting by her side. Although the show was interesting enough, Sarah couldn't concentrate, and she didn't take part in the discussion, which took place afterwards.

After classes, Sarah followed her friends to the canteen but found that she wasn't very hungry and only had some grapes for lunch. Frances admonished her and tried to persuade her to have some pasta, but Sarah couldn't even think of food just right now. Instead, she joined the discussion at a nearby table concerning the plans for the evening. ‘Anything' she thought mentally gritting her teeth ‘but staying in my room alone with my thoughts.'

Sarah finally made a date for later on in the evening and then realized that she felt exhausted. She excused herself and started for home. Frances cast a worried glance after her. Frances sensed keenly that something was profoundly disturbing Sarah at the moment, but as Sarah wouldn't confide in her, there was nothing that Frances could do to help her.

Sarah stepped off the vaporetto and went through the small, winding street, leading to the old beautiful building, housing the student hotel she was living in for the moment. A young family was managing the hotel and did it very efficiently. Sarah stopped at the reception to see if there were any mails or other messages for her, but her box was empty, and her heart sank again. Even if she wouldn't admit it to herself, she waited every day for a sign from Jareth, but none had come so far. She felt tears stinging her eyes, and she had to compose herself through pure will so as not to reveal to the young man, who smiled at her from behind the desk, how upset and unhappy she felt.

Sarah had her room at the top floor in the house, which meant that she had to climb four stairs every day, but she didn't mind; the view from her room was breathtaking, overlooking the canal and all the pastel-colored houses that lounged along it. Even before she reached the fourth landing, she could hear that the radio was playing in her room.

"For heaven's sakes," she burst out aloud, "I don't mind Gina turning on the radio when she is tidying up the room, but I would appreciate it if she could remember to turn it off when she is ready!"

Her steps echoed in the empty corridor, and abruptly she became aware of the music emanating from her room. David Bowie was singing "Loving The Alien." And just like in the record shop the other day, she froze in her tracks and felt the hair stand on end at the back of her neck, and she knew then without any doubt that Gina had nothing to do with this. She entered her room cautiously not knowing what to expect.

At first, the room looked quite normal to her; then she spotted the box on the bed and the large, cream-colored envelope on top of it.

Sarah approached the bed as if a cobra lay sleeping there. She picked up the embossed envelope and saw that it was adorned with a golden crown. She carefully eased out the card inside and read with rising alarm: "Prince Stefano di Corsari and his family would be greatly pleased to welcome Miss Sarah Williams to their home tonight for supper and dance at 9:00 p.m."

Sarah didn't know Prince di Corsari personally but like anyone in Venice, who had the slightest connection to the theater, she knew a lot about him. With his immense fortune, he had on his own fully restored an 18th century theater and without his support the season would be less glamorous to say the least. He sponsored guest-plays by the most fabulous actors and brought in whole foreign theater companies for the season. This year Theatre du Solei from France was due to give two great performances, all thanks to the Prince. The humble mention on the card of "supper and dance" was the understatement of the year. The huge party that was going to take place in Palazzo Corsari had been the talk of the town for weeks. Anyone of any importance would be there, and whoever that had received an invitation on this occasion could stop worrying about the rest of the season; every door would be open in Venice for her or him.

She put the card down and turned to the box. With trembling hands, she opened it. It contained a beautiful evening dress in black georgette silk. She could see at once that it was exquisitely cut, and it had no extra decorations. She gasped when she lifted the dress out of the box because beneath it lay a pair of black lace panties in tanga fashion. The lace work that adorned the front seemed to be handmade, and the back of the panties was — as this model requires — only a piece of silk string that held the panties secured between one's buttocks. They looked truly outrageous. She held out the dress in front of her to examine it. She could see that the front of the dress was only meant to cover the breasts, and it was kept in place with two silk straps that crossed themselves over one's back and were fastened to the skirt at the waistline. The skirt seemed to sway delicately at every movement. Sarah realized that this dress could not be worn with a bra or any other underwear, save perhaps for the tanga-panties.

Sarah laid the dress on the bed and sat down in her chair, drawing up her legs under her, hugging them as if seeking comfort from somewhere. She sat there unmoving for hours thinking of what to do; the velvet evening slowly enveloped the city and still she didn't move.

Finally, she got up.

"Okay Cinderella," she said to the room, "we might as well try these goodies on."

She undressed and hesitantly put the tanga-panties on, feeling the lace tickling her skin. Then she slipped the dress over her head and let it fall down over her body. It felt like a caress, and it could have been made for her; maybe it was. The scanty but beautifully cut front of the dress covered the better part of her breasts but not fully so. When she moved, and the heavy silk moved with her, the outline and roundness of her breasts became just barley and teasingly visible. She took the dress off again and started pacing the room. She knew already that she would go to the party. She felt compelled to.

Half past eight she threw herself in the shower and started getting ready in a fury. She had no time to properly dry her thick, dark hair but toweled it dry the best she could and stroked it wet and shiny away from her forehead and back behind her ears. She put on the panties and the dress, and she took her mother's small diamond earrings and no other jewelry, no watch, no nothing. Then she threw her cashmere overcoat over her shoulders.

"Okay Prince Charming," she addressed the room again through clenched teeth, "here we come!"

When she came down to the reception, the young man managing the desk called out to her. "The gondola you have ordered is waiting for you."

Nothing surprised her anymore.

**********

She left the hotel and went to its landing-place where the gondola waited.

"I want to go to Palazzo Corsari," she said, and the gondolier nodded as if he already knew that.

Venice by night was a magical place. Nothing seemed quite real anymore. Sarah felt as if she was stepping into a dream. The lights of the city had begun gleaming and were reflected in the water surrounding her. The sounds were subdued, and she could distinctly hear the gondolier's oar when he dipped it into the water. She sat alone in the sumptuous gondola and shivered in the dank, cold air. A slightly putrid smell from the canal-water blended with the salty breeze from farther out where the lagoon met the sea.

They left the busy main canals and turned into smaller, quieter waterways. In the distance, Sarah saw the huge Palazzo Corsari ablaze with lights. The palace had been in the Corsari family for several centuries and belonged to the jewels in Venice. Although it threatened to sink into the water like all other old buildings in Venice, it still had an air of vitality around it; maybe because it was still inhabited by people on a daily basis and didn't just function as a museum. The Corsari family had decided though to keep parts of the palace open a couple of days in the week for selected groups to enable the public to see some invaluable works of art.

When Sarah arrived at the landing-place in front of the palace, a servant approached her, helping her out of the gondola. She turned to the gondolier to ask him whether she should pay for the ride, but he had already left the quay and was heading towards the city, a black shadow against the illuminated water.

She made her way to the huge palace gates and followed the servant inside. A doorman, dressed in what seemed to be an original 18th century uniform, reached out to take her coat. If he had thoughts about her cashmere coat among all the full-length furs, nothing in his bland face showed that. She could have been the Queen of Saba for all he cared; he treated her as such. When she finally stood there in the vast entrance in her gorgeous and daring black silk dress, with her still wet hair and only the diamond earrings to adorn her and the air of total innocence about her, she was breathtaking and striking as lightning. She wasn't aware of this, and she didn't observe that people halted for a second on their way into the ballrooms just to look at her.

Another doorman, who guarded the entrance to the ballrooms, took her card and announced her name. Sarah hoped that the message was lost in the general din of the evening and that she could slip into this magic unnoticed. She could see a file of vast rooms, elaborately decorated, stretching out in front of her. The ceilings with huge chandeliers were so high above her head that the paintings up there were almost lost in the shadows. She advanced hesitantly and looked around for any familiar face in the crowd, but she didn't recognize anyone. She observed for the first time that people were staring at her, and she felt a shiver of discomfort. When she looked around again, she could feel them appraising her and trying to get into eye contact with her. She moved quickly farther into the ballrooms and hoped to find something to drink. She felt thirsty all at once. In the distance, she could hear live music and reckoned that the dancing was going on in one of the inner rooms. She looked at the crowd around her and saw that people were wearing just about any kind of costume tonight. She saw the most expensive and beautiful carnival costumes blending with sober evening wear and the most outrageous trash. Some were wearing masks but not everyone. She looked around once more searching feverishly for Jareth. She started to feel a quiet desperation. Where was he? Was he going to leave her here all by herself in this dream or perhaps nightmare?

Suddenly Sarah sensed his presence behind her back. She involuntarily drew her shoulders together as if expecting his hand there, but when he touched her, he softly traced his gloved fingers down her neck and over her shoulder until he reached one of the two tiny silk straps that held the front of her dress in place. When she instinctively wanted to lift her hand to her chest to keep the dress from falling off, she found that she was unable to move and stood frozen, slightly shaking.

"So, you made it after all," Jareth said. "Such a pity had you missed out on the best party of the season. Ah, and by the way, may I compliment you on your choice of dress? A carnival costume tonight would have made you appear just one in the crowd, don't you think so?"

Sarah found that she could move again, and she turned around to face him, making him let go of her dress.

She stopped breathing for a second when she finally confronted him. He was more beautiful and terrible than she remembered him. He was all dressed in black tonight; all the way from the exquisite handmade leather boots; the tights in black silk, looking as if they were molded on his muscular thighs and clinging like skin to his slim hips; the high-collared suede leather jacket carelessly unbuttoned to reveal the soft silk shirt with diamond buttons, open low to the waist. On his ivory-pale chest, the pendant shone almost indecently against all this blackness. His hair sparkled like a silver halo around his beautifully drawn pallid Fay features; shadows and light playing games over his aquiline nose and arched wild eyebrows; his savage and sensual mouth curved into a vicious smile as he sexily wetted his thin lips, for an instant revealing his pointed teeth. She finally lifted her head and looked into his mismatched diamond-hard eyes, one blue and one hazel, and it felt like an impact. He didn't look at her, he looked into her, and she felt as if she couldn't keep a single thing a secret to him.

"I didn't want to come, and I didn't choose the dress!" she blurted out, instantly recognizing how silly and contradictory that sounded under the circumstances and she blushed furiously.

Jareth curved his thin lips into the mocking smile she knew so well. Instead of commenting on the obvious he remarked demurely "However, here you are and more breathtaking than ever."

He let his eyes travel up and down her figure, and she felt it to be offending and an outrage more than an appraisal. He laughed softly and wickedly as if sensing her discomfort. Sarah was on the verge of biting him off with a pert remark when she caught site of the hunger in his dark, brilliant eyes, and a shudder of fear went through her. She knew that he had a purpose with the night ahead of them and she, groping around in the dark, could only smell the danger and guess at the consequences.

The King reached out one of his long slender gloved hands towards her, and Sarah took it. She glanced furtively at him as he languidly and gracefully made his way through the crowd. It was more a fluid movement than a purposeful walk. She had no trouble following him, and this added more than anything to the eerie feeling she had of acting in a dream.

The noise from the crowd sounded like a constant murmur, almost soothing in its monotony. The rooms, which they now passed through, were situated in a row facing the canal and opening out onto a large balcony through numerous windows. In spite of the number of people and all the burning candles — all chandeliers in the ceilings were lit by living candles — Sarah felt cold and shivered slightly.

"Yes, I agree that it is rather chilly tonight," Jareth observed. "Let me get you a glass of wine."

He looked around for a table with refreshments or perhaps a waiter that could help him out but since neither was at hand, he produced a beautiful antique Venetian glass with red wine out of thin air and offered it to her.

"It isn't poison or sleeping-drugs, whatever you might think," he added amusedly, seeing her apprehension.

Sarah drank the wine greedily and realized in an instant that she was both hungry and thirsty, not having had anything to eat since morning. The wine exploded in her veins, and she felt the warmth of it travel through her entire body in seconds. Her cheeks flushed slightly, and there was again a sparkle in her eyes when she turned to him.

"I am hungry too," she said almost in a childish way.

And then she blushed deeply as he leaned down to her and purred in her ear "Well, let's quench that hunger then."

He chuckled deeply in his throat as the innuendo hit home. It was a low, sexy sound, and she closed her eyes and shivered almost to the point of clattering her teeth when he took a strand of her still damp hair in his hand and put it in place behind her ear, sending tingling waves of electricity through her.

Sarah felt being cornered, and her temper rose. "Why do you always try to twist my words around?" she challenged him.

He raised his eyebrows in mock hurt. "Do I?"

Sarah was all exasperated by now, and she almost felt like hitting him as no argument in words seemed to penetrate his guard. Just when she was about to confront him, a party of dancing and singing people came tumbling into the room. It was a mixed bunch, some dressed in beautiful and expensive evening clothes like herself and others in elaborate and fanciful carnival costumes. The two young Italian men leading the dance spotted her and gave a shout of delight.

"Look, Look!! Isn't it ‘Little Black Riding Hood' all alone in the forest!" they chanted and began to circle around her in a mad prancing dance.

All the others joined in, and she found herself standing like a stalked animal in the middle of the ring that wavered and billowed around her ever faster.

"We cannot leave ‘Riding Hood' here at the mercy of the Wolf, we must save her, we must save her!" they sang, and one of the two leaders ventured forward and took hold of her. She looked frantically around for Jareth, but he was gone.

**********

Sarah found herself being swept away like a leaf in a storm. The whole party surged on into one of the vast ballrooms, where the old parquet floor was filled with dancing people, and the immense sofas almost collapsed under the weight of the twisting bodies lounging there.

The young Italian flashed a mischievous smile at her. "I'm Rafael," he informed her. "I've been watching you all evening. You are the most beautiful girl here tonight. Please tell me who you are ‘Riding Hood'."

"I'm Sarah," she smiled at last because he was utterly disarming.

Of course, she didn't believe his pledges — most likely he told every girl that he adored her when he met her — but right at this minute it didn't really matter. She let her guard down and relaxed.

"Sarah who?"

"Sarah will do for you," she laughed.

"Beautiful Sarah, are you hungry? We were just about to eat."

"You bet!" she grinned in earnest and shone up considerably.

Rafael motioned her to stay on the big sofa, where he had put her, and said that he would surprise her with a plate. Other men and women from the party presently came and joined her on the couch or on the floor in front of it carrying plates and wine glasses. A young woman dressed in lace and silk from the 18th century and with a classical carnival mask in front of her face sat down next to her. The woman removed her mask and fanned herself with it. It must have been rather hot and stuffy to wear that thing all evening. She was beautiful indeed, but Sarah found her older than she had expected. Her blonde hair and pallid features were flawless, but she had an air of maturity that one didn't expect to find before seeing her face. She smiled, when seeing Sarah, as if they already knew each other, and Sarah grew uncertain and immediately put up an inner guard.

Rafael came back with a plate loaded with all kinds of delicious things and landed it into Sarah's knee. He then turned to the woman sitting beside her and asked "Anna, shall I get you anything too?"

"Pretty, pretty boy," the woman called Anna smiled. "Yes please, but you can leave that champagne bottle here." She took the Dom Perignon from him and relieved him of some of the glasses that he was carrying.

Anna poured out champagne in two glasses and handed Sarah one.

"Your company," Anna said cautiously, "won't he be missing you?"

"He comes and goes," Sarah murmured evasively. "He will be back later on."

And uttering the words, she knew instantly that this was true. She knew deep down in her soul that Jareth would be back for her tonight, that he wasn't done with her yet. And as the truth dawned upon her, she felt a hot surge hit her stomach, and her knees went all weak. Luckily, she was sitting down.

After a while, Sarah felt heady with the champagne, and she went to the dance floor, unable to sit still anymore. The music was loud and made serious conversation almost impossible, a fact that Sarah welcomed since she didn't want to commit herself in any way this night. Rafael tried to maneuver her into a slow waltz, but she wriggled out of the attempt; she danced with strangers, men and women alike, keeping herself aloof and merely closing her eyes when she felt their hungry and greedy eyes travel her bare shoulders and back. Once or twice she caught sight of Anna, who didn't dance and still sat on the sofa in her beautiful costume and made conversation with whoever was at hand. Most of the time she talked to Rafael and Sarah could feel somehow that they were talking about her.

Then, for a fleeting moment, Sarah thought that she saw Jareth among the dancers. She almost stopped, alarmed, and her dance partner also made an abrupt halt, wondering what had happened. Sarah didn't listen to his anxious questions, but kept looking urgently for Jareth. Had he been dancing? — Who was he dancing with? And then Sarah got an extreme feeling of déjà vu. Without a word, she left her stunned dance partner standing alone on the floor and started to search for Jareth. She knew that she had been through all this once already — in the ballroom in the Labyrinth. She was enacting the ballroom-scene in reality! If this was real . . . She wasn't sure of anything any longer, but that somehow or other Jareth had staged the scene.

Sarah made her way through the dancers and crossed the threshold into another room. She thought she saw Jareth again and headed in his direction, but again she was mistaken. Her heart was now beating wildly, and she felt desperation and a wave of nausea swept over her. In bad need of fresh air, she approached one of the large open windows that left her access to the long balcony facing the canal. She was about to lean herself for support against the gilded window frame when she felt his hot breath on the back of her neck, and his arms encircled her slender waist in an iron-grip. He pulled her close, so close that she felt his pendant leaving marks between her shoulder blades, his whole body outlined against hers. She could feel every detail of him, from his hard thighs against hers and his naked breast through his almost unbuttoned shirt against her bare back.

"Enjoying yourself, Honey?" he whispered as he slowly traced her ear with the tip of his tongue.

She didn't trust her legs anymore and leaned against him for support as wave after wave of heat washed over her. Before she had time to collect herself and answer, he turned her around in his arms, and she saw his smiling mouth. The rest of his face was in shadows that didn't reveal the expression of his eyes. She could only see them glimmer at her in the dark.

"I want to finish the dance we once started, Sarah," he said, gently but firmly moving her out on the dance floor.

She moved with him but only at his will. She wasn't sure though that it was the dance in particular that he wanted to finish tonight. In the ballroom in the Underground, there had been a certain air of romance, which wasn't present here; here, the mood was filled with more frenzy, the pulse was beating stronger, the music was louder and he held her more tightly.

He was an expert dancer, and she only had to follow him; it was as if they were floating an inch above the floor, not touching the ground. She realized that he had removed his gloves when he pressed both his hands to her naked back. She flinched involuntarily as if burnt with red-hot irons. He entwined his fingers in the tiny silk straps of her dress that lay crossed over her back. Her eyes widened in apprehension as she envisaged that he was going to pull the straps down over her shoulders and expose her breasts. He grinned mischievously showing his feral teeth when he spotted the alarm in her eyes.

"No, no, dear Sarah," he cooed soothingly in her ear and then added teasingly, "of course I wouldn't dream of undressing you here in front of all these people. They don't deserve to be offered such a delight!"

Her eyes darkened as anger rose in her throat. Furiously she tried to free herself from his grip.

"My God," she hissed fiercely. "What am I to you? A toy? A thing?"

She managed to get an arm free, and she slapped his face. And regretted it almost at once because his face froze, and his eyes darkened. She flinched as if expecting him to hit her back.

"I don't hit women," he bit out barely audible through his clenched teeth.

Then he kissed her.

They had stopped dancing and were standing body to body in the middle of the dance floor in the surge of the crowd. He still held her with one arm tightly secured against his body. With his free hand, he took a hard grip over her neck and forced her to turn her face up to him. Then he sucked at her lower lip and bit her, just hard enough to make her cry out. He slid his tongue into her mouth gently and urgently probing every corner of it. He licked her lips and then covered her mouth with his, pressing his teeth against hers, devouring her. She shuddered and fell into him, grabbing hold of the soft leather of his jacket for support. Her entire body was on fire; a fire making its way relentlessly from her thighs over her belly and breasts to the beating pulses on her throat and finally reaching her swollen lips. She opened her eyes wide and looked at his face, austere and drawn, a mask of desire. Never in her life had she been kissed in such a way. It was lovemaking in itself. She reached out for him tentatively, responding, wanting to touch him everywhere, suddenly not getting enough of him. With a trembling hand, she traced the outline of his lips. He stood absolutely still, but she could feel him shaking too under her touch. He took hold of her hand and started kissing each finger in turn, finally licking her palm.

"What do you want from me?" she whispered.

His face softened, his eyes regained their mocking glitter, and his lips curled into a wolfish grin 

"Why, you of course, all of you."

Before she could comment on that, not knowing whether he made a fool of her or not, he loosened his tight grip on her, but took hold of her arm, perhaps to support her because she stumbled slightly.

"Come," he added in a light voice. "There are things that I like to show you."

He took her with him towards a huge door in the ballroom that seemed to exit out onto a garden within the palace. In the corner of her eye, she became aware of that Rafael and Anna were having an argument. Rafael was gesticulating and evidently shouting something, and Anna put a hand on his chest and tried to calm him. When Jareth passed the group, still holding Sarah securely by the arm, Anna let go of Rafael. She turned to Jareth, curtsied and said in a low, pleasant voice "Good evening, Your Majesty." Jareth turned his face to her and made an elegant bow. But he didn't make any comments.

Sarah, however, felt a pang of uneasiness and insecurity and she whispered flustered "You know her?"

"I know many people here tonight," he remarked calmly, but he didn't elaborate on the subject and kept walking with easy grace towards the garden door.

They came out into what appeared to be an atrium, an outdoor enclosure in the middle of the palace. When Sarah looked up, she could see the stars glimmering above her. An aromatic and flowery smell emanated from the bushes and trees around them. Jareth didn't stop but kept walking towards a flight of steps leading down to yet another level. She could faintly hear the beat of heated music. The rhythm was sensual and throbbing. She caught herself thinking of the Rio Carnival instead of this one in Venice. He stopped before descending, released his hold on her arm and turned to her. It seemed as if he hesitated just slightly before entering the room below.

"Feel like playing games?" There was a malicious glint in his eyes, and the smile on his thin lips was more vicious than mocking now. "The stakes are so much higher this time than the last time we had a go at it, you realize that, don't you?"

He looked intently into her eyes as if seeking the answer there.

Sarah's heart was now beating so fast that she thought that he would be able to hear it. He reached out his hand and outlined the delicate curve of her breast that was revealed by the loose and heavy fall of the silk material, which made up the front of her dress. Her nipples hardened and she knew that it showed through the supple silk. He moved his hand yet again and touched her nipples, brushing over them. He might as well have put at torch against her skin because she felt the heat in her body exploding again like pain. She found that she couldn't, wouldn't, withdraw. His touch was achingly arousing and she squirmed under it; she knew and could see that none of this escaped him. His intent seemed to be deadly, and he was killing her with caresses. Lust, desire, naked hunger, all feelings played like light and shadows on his face and something else, extremely terrible and frightening, that she couldn't yet name, was there in his eyes. He scared her, he taunted her, and she wanted him so badly that she was shaking with the need.

"Not yet, my little one," he purred deep in is throat, as if reading her thoughts, and then he bent down over her, sought the tender spot behind her ear and placed a feathery kiss there, moving on to her earlobe that he took in his mouth and sucked on it, twirling his tongue around her diamond earring.

‘Why is it that I can't resist him?' she wondered in desperation. ‘I can't let him do this to me.' And to regain control of herself she broke free. He let go of her, but the smile on his mouth told her that he did it because it suited him and not because she forced him.

"Come, come," he urged again.

When they entered the room, Sarah could see beautiful young girls in elaborate silk dresses dancing in the center. They were swaying to the beat of the heavy music as if in a trance. The room was in semidarkness, and the rest of the guests seemed more or less to be part of the shadows. As the beat quickened and one girl in particular began to move her body in trashing convulsions, some of the men moved in around her and started to touch her everywhere. With quick, violent movements, they tore off the silk that covered her body, and she didn't seem to even notice that she was naked. They looked like at flock of vultures going down on their prey. She was now totally at their mercy. The men lifted the girl onto a table, pinning her down to it. They parted her legs and exposed her. Then one of the men opened his fly, brought out his engorged member and plunged it with a savage thrust into the girl who let out a wailing cry. With a few strokes, like an animal, he was done with her, and the others were now taking their turn to abuse her. The girl was rolling her head from one side to the other on the table, hardly conscious any longer. But after a while the nature of her cries started to change, the wailing turned to lustful moans, and she soon climaxed in total abandon.

Sarah cried out too and turned to Jareth, mouth still open now with a silent cry. He looked at her with fierce fathomless eyes.

"I want to leave!" she cried. "Please let me go, please let me leave this place!!"

He didn't answer but again took hold of her upper arm to keep her from running away.

"I hate you, I hate you!!" Sarah screamed and tried with all her might to free herself from his iron-grip. "Why do you want to show me this sordid and evil scene? Is it something that you enjoy?"

"Show you what?" He arched his eyebrows in mock surprise.

Sarah stopped in her tracks and turned abruptly to the dance floor, but the men and the ravished girl were nowhere to be seen. All confused by now and rage and fear mounting inside her, she whirled around yet again to face him

"How dare you use your evil tricks on me!" she shouted. "How can you be so cruel to me? What have I done to you?!"

For loss of words at last, she raised her free hand and began to hit him. He had no trouble though catching her hand in mid air and securing it to his chest. She tried to jerk her hand away, his skin burning her fingers.

"Ah, cruelty now, that's an interesting subject!" He flashed his eyes towards her and his voice took on an edge all of a sudden. "You can never be sure whether what happened out there on the dance floor was a trick of mine or not, can you? I use cruelty when it serves my purpose. Just like you do. You and I are very much alike, my dear Sarah, much more than you would like to admit."

"No, let me finish," he interrupted as she drew a breath and with flaming eyes and flushed cheeks wanted to contradict him.

"I know you better maybe than you know yourself. And I know, ever since our first meeting five years ago, that you have the potential for cruelty within you. You can be as cruel as I can be, I have already said that to you once before, and that is why we match each other so well. I knew then, and I know now that you would kill to protect what you think belongs to you and to get what you want. You once nearly killed me."

Sarah's eyes widened as she in a flash remembered the last moments of her stay in the Underground. She could see him so vividly in front of her, promising the world to her, to be her slave and to love her always, pleading with her to accept his terms and let go of Toby and how she had crumbled him with her words.

Her heart sank and a chill descended upon her ‘What is he going to do to me? Is this revenge for what I once did to him? Has he waited this long to destroy me?' The frantic questions kept swirling around in her head and made her dizzy with fear.

She started to draw backwards towards the wall trying with all her might to find a way to escape. With each step she took, he followed and then they were standing at the wall, she with her back to it and he covering her with his body so close that she could feel every inch of him, and his hot breath was on her face.

"I want to leave!" she cried again in anguish.

"No, you don't," he whispered silkily into her ear. "Don't lie to me. You can't lie to me; you know that, don't you?"

The rage and fear were almost choking her by now and it was fueled by the fact that she felt her body betraying her. He was so close, and the heat from him ignited her skin. As if sensing this, he pressed himself even closer to her, and she gasped and opened her eyes wide when she felt his arousal, his manhood growing hard against her belly. He swiftly bowed his head and kissed her hard on the neck, leaving a mark there; maybe wanting to leave his mark on her.

She finally felt something snap within her, and her legs buckled under her. She wanted to cry, to hit him, to run away from him, to cling to him and kiss him so much that it hurt and so that she could make him cry out in anguish and pleasure too. When he felt her fall, he lifted her in a swift, smooth movement and gathered her up in his arms. She took hold of him and buried her face against his neck, just above the high collar of his leather jacket, where his skin was all soft and exposed. He carried her out of the room hurriedly with quick, silent steps.

**********

He went upstairs in the palace, and the sound of the party and the music gradually subsided until all the sounds Sarah could hear was the echo of his footsteps against the marble floor in an endlessly long galleria and the furious beating of his heart in her ear. She could feel him clench and unclench his jaw, and he held her close to him in an embrace that was as gentle as it was brutal.

Suddenly he stopped and kicked a door open with his boot. He entered quickly, put her down on an enormous canopied bed and shut and locked the door behind them with a snap of his fingers.

The silence and stillness around them were deafening. She sat up at the end of the bed and looked at him standing in front of her, arms folded, his face in the shadows.

"Where are we?" she whispered. "We can't stay here, someone will find us."

"I can bring the Underground with me if I need to," he replied under his breath. "As far as the crowd downstairs is concerned, we don't exist to them just right now. No one knows where we are, no one will ever find us here."

"And no one will miss you," he added.

He slowly began to pace the floor in front of her. She could see him moving in the light from the big window, ablaze with moonlight. She felt like being in the presence of a huge wild animal, a black panther stalking its prey, and she started to shiver uncontrollably.

He moved closer to her, looming over her. She shrank back a little and tried to swallow her rising fears. Then he knelt in front of her to come level to her face. He moved closer to her body, gently caressing her legs, forcing them apart and all the while pushing her dress up towards her waist.

"Please don't hurt me," she said in a small voice.

"Shhh…" He put a finger on her lips. "I will never hurt you. I have already promised you that."

Then, in an agonizingly slow movement he pulled the tiny silk straps from her shoulders, let the heavy silk fall down to her waist and uncovered her breasts. She gasped as she felt the cool air against her skin, and then she cried out as he leaned in against her and took one of her nipples in his mouth. She wasn't prepared for the surge of exquisite pleasure that hit her when he started to suck her nipple and twist his tongue around it. Weakly she wanted to fall back onto the bed but he surprised her again when he took her other nipple between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it hard. The blazing pain turned into excruciating pleasure, and her blood started to pound between her legs in rhythm with the raging beating of her heart. He immediately eased the pain with his mouth, blowing wet kisses all over her breasts.

He put an arm around her waist and drew her closer still towards his body, moving further in between her legs. She thought wildly that he must be able to feel her pulse and the oncoming rush of wetness below by now, since all that separated her mound from his naked breast, was the flimsy lace of the tanga-panties.

He continued to fondle her breasts with his free hand and his mouth, and she closed her eyes tightly and arched her back, closing the gap between them further, feeling an unexpected need not to lose contact with his supple fingers and soft lips. She heard a low sound from him, more like a vibration than a sound, as he feathered kisses and nibbling bites all over her bosom and stomach, leaving traces of his teeth on her breasts as he licked and sucked at them again.

He got to his feet at last and removed the dress from her. When she lost contact with his body and for a moment believed her free, she made a dash for the door as if by reflex. He had anticipated as much, for he caught her in a swift, merciless grip and secured her body against his with his strong arms as if trapping her in a vice.

"Where would you go?" he breathed softly against her mouth.

She stopped fighting and leaned panting towards him and then flinched as she got in touch with his rock-hard, throbbing erection.

He chuckled amusedly as she gazed up at him, eyes two dark liquid pools. "Yes, Honey, that is what you do to me."

She saw his smiling mouth, but when she looked into his smoldering eyes, they were not smiling. Instead, she recognized in them his carnal hunger, his terrible desire and craving for her, and she caught her breath with a hitching sound in her throat. Her skin went on fire, and she amazed herself with her need to touch him and began furtively to explore and caress him. He let out a deep shuddering sigh and threw his head back.

Then he bore down on her, savagely biting, kissing her neck just below her ear. She could feel his sharp teeth grating her skin, and she whimpered grabbing hold of his shirt for support, the pulse in her throat fluttering like a bird caught in a cage. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her into is body so hard that the diamond buttons in his shirt and his pendant hurt her and left marks on her breasts. All the time she could hear him moaning low deep down in his throat, and he was still moaning when he started to kiss her. He forced her mouth open and filled it with his tongue. He licked and sucked her lips and bit her tongue. He licked her nostrils and her cheeks and then he covered her mouth again. It was as if he wanted to eat her alive. She tried to gasp for air, almost fainting by now.

He pushed her back onto the bed among the down-filled pillows, his weight pressing her down as he followed. She breathed raggedly, and her chest rose and fell in frenzy. He rolled to the side and put his hand on her belly and ran it over her in long, calming strokes and eventually her anxiety subsided. It was but a brief pause though, being in the eye of the hurricane as she was. His hand moved to the exquisite lace of the tanga-panties, and he began to finger the trimmings. He took hold of her and turned her around in the bed and played with the silk string of the panties, all the while tracing the supple roundness of her bare buttocks with his fingertips. She was squirming under his touch by now, fighting to turn around again, feeling utterly helpless in this position. She managed to face him again only to have him take a firm grip of the panties and rip them off her in one savage pull.

Now she lay completely naked in front of him, dark hair spilt like ink over the pillow, flushed cheeks and erect nipples, her eyes wild and pleading at the same time.

"I want you naked too," she whispered with a shaking voice and started to tug at his shirt.

He got on his knees in the bed and pulled off the jacket, the shirt and the pendant and exposed his smooth pale chest, where the muscles rippled under his soft skin with every movement he made. Then he kicked off his boots and removing his black tights, freed his achingly hard manhood. She opened her mouth slightly and took in the sight of him; he was so incredibly beautiful in his state of arousal. The throbbing between her legs was becoming almost unbearable, and she just had to touch him. She reached out her hand and put it around his velvet hardness. He groaned and involuntarily jerked, raising his hips to her hand. Then he gently removed her hand not wanting her to bring him over the edge just yet.

He stretched her out in the bed and began caressing her belly moving down to her mound, covered with dark springy curls. She gave a cry and tried weakly to stop his hand, but he parted her legs and began slowly but insistently to fondle her most private part, rubbing her wetness all over it, slowly inserting a finger in her throbbing tight channel as his thumb found her clit and began to flick it. She emitted small panting moans all the time and arched her back against his hand, dying if she lost contact with him. He then bent down over her and started licking her folds from the bottom and up until he reached her most sensitive spot. He took her clit in his mouth and flicked his tongue around it and inserted yet another finger into her. Sarah screamed now, a long wailing cry of need, and she frantically entangled her fingers in his hair as if to make him stop and end this terrible pleasure. Then she tightened, feeling her whole body contract around his fingers and orgasmed for the first time in her life. All the while he kept licking her and fondling her, kissing her thighs and biting the silky soft skin of her folds. Over and over again she climaxed as he brought her over the edge with the intense pleasure he gave her with his fingers and lips.

She opened her eyes as she felt him leave her body, and she moaned craving more. But he was only going to shift position so that he could kiss her mouth again. She feverishly started to move her hands over his body almost scared of herself now, wanting him so badly that she would die if he left her there unappeased. He looked down at her and saw the need and desire mounting in her eyes.

"Do you want it now?" he whispered huskily with a shaking voice, betraying his own need. She nodded, but he insisted "Say it, say that you want it. Say that you want me!"

"I want you, Jareth," she groaned "I want you, I want you! Please take me! Undo me! Kill me if you like! But give me the pleasure now!"

Then she heard a sound from him that was a mixture of a roar and a cry, and he took hold of her thighs and parted her legs so that she lay all open in front of him, and he entered her with one swift movement, pushing himself up to the hilt deep inside her. She cried when the pain hit her, and she couldn't help the tears sting her eyes. He immediately softened his strokes and started to kiss away her tears, one by one. He forced himself to lie almost still for a moment inside her, but as the pain lessened and was replaced by utter pleasure she dug her nails into his buttocks and pressed herself towards him.

"Kill me, kill me!" she hissed through clenched teeth, and he started to move inside her with long, furious strokes, filling her up to the brim, stretching her tender walls to the utmost, finding every sensitive spot within her, and when she started to tighten her muscles around him and spasm after spasm began to shake her, and when she screamed his name as the last control snapped, his whole body tensed and with an anguished groan he released himself and shot his seed deep into her again and again until he was all spent. Then he collapsed on top of her, and they lay quiet in the bed at last, sweat glistening limbs still entangled, the rhythm of their lovemaking slowing down, heart beating against heart, his head heavy on her breast and, in the end, an infinite solace seeping through their bodies, bringing them mercifully to oblivion.

**********

Sarah woke up, and she didn't know what time it was. There was no clock in the room, and she hadn't brought a watch. But the moon was gone, and the sky wasn't pitch-black any longer. She eased herself up in a sitting position and looked down at Jareth sleeping by her side, his arm over her body. She felt sore all over, and she blushed although she was alone but for her sleeping lover when she remembered their lovemaking. It was still a wonder to her that she had been capable of this abandon.

She gazed again at Jareth and realized that she had never really looked at him properly. He was certainly the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Never had she met with anyone where pure, raw sex, subtle eroticism, beauty, force, powerful evil and languid, easy grace blended and made up an entity in the way it did in him, making a perfect and unique being. Now she looked closely at him and found that when his eyes were closed and his face and body at ease, there was also something vulnerable about him. He looked almost fragile there in the bed beside her. She scrutinized his face closely for the first time. There were small lines at the corner of his mouth and finely drawn blue veins on his eyelids; she found that he had long dark eyelashes almost like a girl. His cheekbones were angular and pointed with the skin drawn tightly over them. This feature gave his face a sharp and rather austere look that was softened only by his sensual mouth, at rest for the moment, the mocking smile gone from his soft and sensitive lips. She couldn't help herself, but she wanted so much to touch him and very lightly she caressed his face and chest. He made a small sound and just turned a little, securing her closer to him with his heavy arm.

She mused about his words from yesterday. He had talked about cruelty, and she had feared his revenge. But surely he didn't hate her now? How could he have made love to her in that way if he hated her? He couldn't have wanted to destroy her, could he?

She turned her gaze towards the window and stared at it as the awful truth started to dawn on her.

He had destroyed her in a way. He had.

She continued to stare at the window now without seeing it anymore.

"I love him," she said in an anguished voice to the room. "I have loved him since I first met him five years ago."

Her thoughts trailed to the fatal day when she had carelessly invoked this fate on her without thinking twice. She had more or less blundered into his world and had had no inkling whatsoever that she was walking on quicksand the moment she set foot in the Labyrinth. "It's a piece of cake," she had said the way silly, unthinking girls would do, not having a clue about the consequences of their acts and their words. And with one gesture and one word she had turned everything around her into ashes. It was true, of course, that she had saved Toby that day, but it was her own fault that Toby had to go through the ordeal in the first place, and she knew that he wasn't unmarred by the experience. She couldn't blame Jareth if he wanted to destroy her after what she had done to him.

And he had bided his time. He had gradually stolen back into her life, and somewhere along the line she found that he was constantly in her mind and that she couldn't live without him in the end. The mere thought of him turned her inside into liquid fire, an ache in her heart and her guts.

What would become of her now? The idea of getting married to a nice, young man and go to live in Suburbia was a scorn under the circumstances. There wasn't even the slightest chance left for her ever again to lead what others might call a “normal” life. Whose baby would she have if she couldn't have his child?

As the width of the consequences of her situation gradually hit home, she was filled with the most heart-rending desolation and despair and she began to cry. She curled herself up around the excruciating pain and almost choked on her sobs, and the tears were streaming down her face. She could feel him wake up behind her, but she couldn't stop crying, she just tried to hide her face from him.

Jareth didn't say a word. He just took hold of her extremely gently and wrapped his legs and arms around her, drawing her back against his chest, cradling her like a baby. He bent down over her face and kissed her wet cheeks with small tiny kisses, trying in vain to comfort her. But she kept crying with tightly shut eyes, tears dropping on her breasts and his arms. Her whole inside was one terrible cramp, and she couldn't untie the knot. He began to rock her gently and whisper sweet nothings in her hair. Still, he hadn't asked a single question about the reason for her despair. But Sarah wasn't surprised. She knew that he knew, without asking any questions.

At last, the cramp inside started to dissolve and in the wake she began to shiver uncontrollably. Then she gave in and fell against his chest, still crying but the sobs weren't so loud anymore. He still rocked her and held her tightly to his body. She heard him murmur in her hair, and when he raised his voice a little, she could finally make out the words.

"I love you," he whispered with soft desperation. "I love you, I love you, I love you! I could die for you! I would kill for you if I had to!" And he repeated it over and over again like a mantra.

She raised her head and opened her eyes at last and looked at him, and he looked down at her. His eyes were so soft in the darkness that she could hardly see that they were of different color. Just barely could she make out the smoldering glimmer in their depths; a testimony to the fire within that he kept at bay. She opened her mouth to speak to him but no sound came, and tears began to flow from her eyes again. He licked her tears away and turned her gently around in his arms to face him.

"Shhh…," he murmured against her cheek. "Don't cry anymore. It's over. It's over. You needn't be afraid."

And then she felt him grow hard again. He bent down and opened her mouth with his tongue, and she let it happen. In her exhausted state, she was prey to any feeling. He lifted her up and pushed himself quickly and urgently inside, keeping her in his lap, facing him. He held her tightly around the waist for support because she was swaying in his arms as if all the bones in her body had turned to liquid. She moaned now with open mouth, panting as he was filling her with relentlessly hurried thrusts as if he couldn't wait for his release. They kept looking at each other with wild hunger, not wanting to miss a single detail of what the pleasure did to the other. He moved hard and uncontrolled within her now. She took hold of his head and locked her eyes into his when she felt him coming, and he let her see his face when pain and pleasure hit him and mingled there as he emptied himself into her, and she screamed as she dissolved in his fire; then she fell backwards onto the bed, his arms breaking her fall and there she lay, eyes now closed, still joined to him, his cock slowly calming down inside her and that was the most comforting feeling she had had during the whole night; could he stay within her like this, nothing evil would ever happen to her again she thought as she succumbed to sleep, putting her head at rest in his hands as he cradled her.

One more time before the morning broke he took her. She drifted to the surface of her sleep feeling him moving stealthily and silently inside her. She didn't want to wake up but indulged in laying almost perfectly still under him with closed eyes and let the sensation wash over her in waves, concentrating on the almost unbearable pleasure building up in her guts. He hardly moved at all but for the slow pressure of his huge hardness pulsating within her. Her body betrayed her when her muscles started to contract around him, but still she didn't open her eyes. She could feel him smile against her cheek when he realized that she was awake, and he buried his head at her shoulder purring softly and groaning with the pleasure as he found his relief, and the orgasm rippled through her body like tiny sparks of electricity.

**********

The bleak morning light filled the room when Sarah sat up in the bed with a jerk and found that she was alone. For a panicky moment, she wondered if Jareth had left her already. Then she turned her head and saw him standing by the window. He was dressed, and she silently got out of the bed, wrapping a sheet around her and went up to him. He was looking out over the grey canal, and he didn't immediately turn to her. When he did, his face was composed and guarded, but she could see that his eyes were weary and tired. He smiled though when he saw her approaching.

"Good morning, my little one," he said to her and gently caressed her cheek. Then he turned to the window again and sighed "It is time that I sent you back to your room by now."

She winced although she knew she must have to accept the inevitable. "When will I see you again?" she asked in a small voice.

"Soon" he answered not making another comment, and she wondered with a sinking heart what "Soon" meant to a man, who had lived in centuries already and for whom "Forever" was not long at all. He moved his now gloved hand in under her thick, heavy, dark hair and caressed the nape of her neck. He lifted his free hand gracefully in the air and at the top of his fingers a shimmering crystal unexpectedly materialized. He turned fully to face her, and she could see the embers of fire glimmer faintly deep down in his beautiful eyes. He composed his face once more, and she found herself looking at him almost in awe because he appeared before her like the true King he really was at that moment. He still held her by the neck in a firm but gentle grip as he brought the crystal to her face. It exploded in a white light that blinded her, and she remembered nothing more until she woke up in her own bed in her hotel room hours later.

**********

An insistent telephone signal cut through the silence and made her scramble out of bed, and she nearly fell to the floor not taking into account how exhausted and weak she really was.

"Sarah!" Frances shouted at the other end of the line. "I have been so extremely worried about you. What happened to you last night? You're not hurt in any way, are you?" she continued anxiously.

"I'm all right Frances," Sarah said in a voice that she hardly recognized herself. "I'm just so very tired. Could you please make my excuses to Signor Bertoldi and tell him that I am ill today but that I will try to come to class tomorrow?"

"Sarah, I'm coming over to your room." Frances sounded as if she wouldn't take no for an answer. "If you need a doctor or something I will have to arrange that." And before Sarah could protest, Frances had put down the phone.

Sarah moved on shaky legs towards the mirror in her room, she had to make sure in a hurry that she could show herself to Frances. She stopped almost bewildered in front of the mirror because it took a while for her to recognize herself in the image of the strange girl, who looked at her from the glass with big sad eyes that held shadows of passionate and violent images in their depths. She wore her plain cotton nightgown, but when she lifted it, she could see the marks of his lovemaking all over her body. She hastily covered herself and for safety's measure she wrapped herself up to the neck in her bathrobe, and then she fell down on the bed, because her legs didn't support her, and she began to shiver violently. That was how Frances found her some minutes later.

"Sarah won't you please tell me what has happened to you?" Frances insisted alarmed at the sight of her friend.

Sarah took Frances's hand. She knew that she must somehow reassure Frances and convince her that no real danger was at hand.

"Look Frances," she said weakly. "Just right now I can't tell you what has happened to me, and I'm not going to serve you any cock-and-bull-story about having eaten the wrong kind of oysters or anything like that. I need to rest today and then I will be fine. I promise you. I just need to sleep a little."

"You sound more as if you are trying to convince yourself rather than me," Frances sighed and put a hand to Sarah's forehead. "But, okay, I'll leave you here, and I will ask the reception to send you something light to eat and I will look in on you when I'm back in the afternoon."

Frances put a blanket over Sarah and remained sitting beside her for a while until she could see Sarah drifting off to sleep. Then Frances tiptoed quietly out of the room.

Hours later, when Sarah woke up of her own accord, she found a note by her bed from Frances saying: "You were sleeping when I looked in on you, and I didn't want to wake you up. Please call me as soon as you can." 

On the table beside her bed was a plate with some chicken sandwiches and mug of tea. She brought the food with her and sat down by the window. The tea was cold, but it didn't matter. She ate the sandwiches in small bites, trying to think of nothing at all. She found that it felt good to eat, and she relaxed a little. Then she leaned against the back of the chair and tried to approach her thoughts.

She found that she at least could think of Jareth without starting to cry, but the dull ache in her heart and guts made her pant quickly when she with the utmost effort took hold of herself to keep the pain from seeping out into her entire body. It left her shaking for a long while.

She sat by the window for several hours contemplating her situation. In the end, she had to admit to herself that she couldn't solve the problems for the moment and decided to call on Frances. She needed someone to talk to. She put on a turtleneck sweater and a pair of jeans and went to look for her friend.

Frances was reading when Sarah entered, and she leaped to her feet from the bed and went straight up to Sarah and put her arms around her. Sarah put her head on Frances's shoulder and started to cry — tears that she thought she had exhausted long ago. Frances didn't say anything to her but just held her and stroked her head and hair. At last, the tears subsided and Frances sat them both down on the bed.

"It is someone you love, isn't it?" Frances asked. At which Sarah nodded silently as the tears welled up into her eyes again.

"I watched you for the last week," Frances continued, "and I came to the conclusion that your anxiety had to do with someone, who meant that much to you. You weren't listening to any of us, and you were constantly on the lookout for messages, calls and letters."

"Has he hurt you?" she added worriedly.

Sarah shook her head.

"Can you tell me about it?"

"Not all of it," Sarah sighed.

Then she tried to tell Frances about being constantly apprehensive and watching, about being at the mercy of someone, who came and went randomly in her life, about being in love with someone that she might not be allowed to live with. And maybe Frances couldn't take it all in, but it was a great comfort to Sarah to have her there to talk to.

**********

Sarah attended classes the next day. She and Frances had agreed on to tell anyone who asked that Sarah had taken ill during the evening in question and stayed in her room. As Frances corroborated the story, no one would question its authenticity.

It was good to work again, but Sarah's heart wasn't in it anymore. She couldn't bring herself to write home, which resulted in anxious telephone calls from Dad and Karen. She told them that she had a cold and would be all right in a couple of days. Anyway, her stay here was drawing to a close, and she would soon be going back to the States. The mere thought of that made her feel sick. She didn't want to go anywhere, and she didn't want to stay either. At nights, she lay in her bed listening to the silence, wondering if one could die from a broken heart.

She ran into Rafael one day at the Piazza San Marco. They greeted each other awkwardly. None of the bouncing vitality from the ball was present in Rafael today. He was very correct and guarded. She sighed inwardly and guessed that the stigma of her love was written all over her face.

Then she pulled herself together and decided to go out and look for the present to Toby that she had promised him. She couldn't very well come home without it. She went at first to the big department stores, but she didn't find anything that appealed to her and feeling rather tired and listless she turned to the smaller shops that had a variety of old and new things, hoping that she might become inspired there instead.

Finally, she stopped in front of a little antique shop. When peering through the window, she could see both books and toys and a beautiful Harlequin-doll caught her eye. ‘Well, that is something that I could really get him, isn't it?' she thought, Harlequin, or Arlechino as he is known in Italy, being one of the principal characters in the Commedia dell'Arte Theatre. She went into the shop and asked to have a closer look. She could see at once that it was a valuable piece of art and perhaps much too expensive for Toby, but she didn't care. She had set her heart on it.

"Could you please gift wrap it for me?" she asked the shopkeeper.

The little man was happy to oblige; she was his first customer for the day. When he went out into his store to look for some extra fancy paper, Sarah began to browse the shop. There were so many things crammed onto the shelves and tables that it was hard to move around. When she backed a little to get a better view of a painting, she accidentally knocked some books to the floor. She bent down to pick them up when one of the books opened up at her feet, and she stared down at the poem, written on its pages. It was in German and the title read "Erlkönig." She knew from literature classes in college that it was a poem by the world-famous German author Goethe, but never before had she thought about what the title might be, had Goethe been an English writer instead of a German. Then perhaps the title had read "The Fay King." She froze and stood staring at the book for what seemed an eternity. Then she felt Jareth's presence very strongly around her and she knew without any doubt that this was a message from him. She knew the poem very well, yet she read the chilling little piece again about the child, who died in his father's arms when the father tried to save his son from the Fay King.

‘Yes, it is true that also you are prepared to kill to get what you want,' she thought. ‘You have said as much to me, and I believe it to be true because I'm dying without you!'

When she leafed through the book, a note appeared between the pages. She caught it before it fell and looked at it with apprehension. It was a card in thick cream-colored paper and the calligraphy was unknown to her. It simply read "Don't be afraid. I will be with you soon!"

The shopkeeper came out and found her staring at the books and almost in tears, and he thought that she was alarmed because she had possibly caused damage to the books, and he tried to reassure her that no harm was done.

She only smiled and shrugged a little. "I'll have this book too," she said.

"Si signorina, would you want to have this one gift wrapped as well?" the shopkeeper asked and peered at her over his glasses.

"No, thank you," she answered, "it's not a gift; I'm buying it for myself." And she cautiously slipped the book into her bag.

When she left the shop and came out into the street, she found that she could breathe again for the first time in about a week. She now knew with certainty that his "Soon" also meant soon the way she figured time. Her body started to tingle all over.

"If I can't live without you, if I am dying without you, then there is no option for me, but to go and live with you, wherever you are," she said aloud.

People who went by looked curiously at her standing there in the street, hugging her bag to her chest and talking right out into the air, but Sarah didn't care. Without warning, she felt all weak and at the same time a great burden was lifted from her as she realized that there was but one choice.

And she started to run back to the hotel.


	2. INTERLUDE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter in this story "CARNIVAL IN VENICE" is staged in Venice five years after Sarah's visit to the Labyrinth, as described in the film. Jareth once again enters Sarah's life in this story of obsession and ultimate seduction and Sarah embarks on a perilous journey, which might end in bliss or destruction.  
> 
> _Here, in "INTERLUDE" some questions asked in "CARNIVAL" will get their answers, but new problems arise when Sarah decides to cross a border. We get to know Anna better and we go Down South where the nights are hot in more than one sense._  
>   
> 
> Text copyright 2001 - 2014 by Thomcats aka VoyaMariner. All rights reserved.  
> July 2014 Thomcats VoyaMariner.
> 
>    
> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

**INTERLUDE**

At last the breeze of the night stirred the curtains and cooled her burning and moist face; it brought with it an intense fragrance of jasmine, mimosa and oleander blending with the strong and musky scent of their lovemaking that still filled the room.

He was heavily asleep with his head resting on her chest, and she had put an arm around him and caressed his neck. Both their bodies were glistening with sweat, and she had no intention of washing it off. She wanted to keep the scent of him on her body forever if that was possible. She put her hand around his penis, still half-swollen. It quivered in her hand, but he didn't wake up. ‘If I hold on to him like this,' she thought in an almost childish way, ‘he will not be able to disappear again.' She put a feathery kiss on his forehead and reveled in the thought of how she had triggered his climax and ecstasy with her lips and hands, the taste of his semen, salty and reminding her of almond, still in her mouth.

He was so heavy resting on her breast, and her arm was almost going numb but she didn't mind. She could have taken even more of his weight — anything to ensure her that his presence was real; that he was here with her tonight.

She wetted her dry lips and tried to close her eyes. Sleep wouldn't come though. She may have slept off and on for a while, but very lightly, and all the while her thoughts were roaming wildly in her head.

**********

Sarah's last meeting with Jareth in Venice had been a disaster and when contemplating the event and analyzing it afterwards, she had to admit that perhaps it wouldn't have turned out so wrong, had she only been prepared and not shown her doubt so clearly.

After she had received his message, hidden in the volume of poems, she thought that it would be a matter of hours — at most a day or two — before she would meet him again, but it didn't happen that way. The days went by, and suddenly she grew wary and uncertain. What was she about to throw herself into? Had she really thought about the consequences? How on earth would she explain all this to Dad and Karen — and to Toby?

When finally it was time to leave Italy and go back to the States in early April, she found that it was impossible. Frances tried to reason with her, but Sarah wouldn't listen.

"Frances, I can't leave before I have settled this issue. It's a matter of life and death to me!" she cried.

"Well, if you are not prepared to go now, you MUST talk to your folks back home and tell them so," Frances interrupted her vehemently.

"You can't expect me to make up some fake story about your whereabouts, and you know as well as I do that they will pin me down to the floor to get the details out of me, if I show up without you!"

Sarah hid her face in her hands and felt a wave of shame wash over her when confronted with Frances. She knew it was true. She had — consciously or unconsciously — wanted to let Frances take the blow and hide behind her.

"I'm sorry Frances," she said in a subdued voice. "Of course I won't let you take the confrontation. I can't change my mind though. I just can't leave right now. I will call Dad tonight and tell him. And I will tell him that I am invited to stay in Europe for a while. It is a lie, I know that, but I'm not giving you any more details for your own sake. When they ask you, and of course we both know they will, you can honestly say that you haven't heard anything more about my plans."

"I'm sorry too," Frances said, "I'm so worried about you, and I will not be able to hide that from your father and stepmother."

They hugged for a long time.

"Please, phone me or write to me," Frances added before they parted.

**********

When Sarah came back to her own room in the late evening with her head full of what she was going to say to her father over the phone, she walked right into Jareth. She was totally unprepared for his visit, and he almost scared her out of her wits. He didn't greet her in any way but walked in silence back and forth in her room, filling it entirely with his presence. His eyes were guarded, and he threw a cool glance at her now and then.

"I didn't expect you," she was flustered now, "I mean, of course I expected you but . . .” Her voice trailed off.

He curled his thin lips into a smile that didn't comfort her and said in his low, melodious voice, "You don't have to elaborate on your explanations, my dear; I know exactly what you are trying to say."

As always, when he "undressed" her mind and confronted her with her own naked image, she got furious with frustration. Why couldn't he leave her with just a shred of dignity?

"Do you think this is EASY for me?" she cried out. "I don't know what to do any longer. You leave me here stranded in the middle of a foreign city all alone. I can't leave and I can't stay. You tell me that you won't leave me. How shall I interpret that when I'm left alone all the time? I'm scared stiff of my future and what help do you offer me?"

As she was talking, tears started to run over her white face, and she clenched and unclenched her fists in impotent rage. He stopped his pacing and approached her. He took her face in both his hands and turned it up to him, and he looked her intently into the eyes.

"I'm never going to leave you, that is a fact, and you can interpret that as you like. In the end, you may not even like the idea, but I'm NEVER going to give you up to anybody else." He spoke to her in a calm but serious voice.

Sarah became quite still inside all at once, and she listened to him and became aware of the unfathomable depth that lurked beneath his words. She looked into his eyes, searching for the compassion that she knew he was capable of, and at long last his austere face softened, and he bent down and kissed her, brushing his lips over hers, gently licking the corners of her mouth and waiting for her to give in and open up to him. She closed her eyes and let him take possession of her mouth as she wondered in desperation why she had had to be the one that like a moth had flown right into his white burning fire. Was she going to die after all?

When she opened her eyes again, she could still feel him, but she could no longer see him. She cried out in anxiety and surprise. She felt him withdraw, and she tried frantically to hold on to him. When she turned around and for a moment confronted her mirror, she saw his image there, and she ran up to it and started hammering the glass with her fists.

"Don't leave me," she screamed. "Don't LEAVE ME!!"

"It's strange," he said with a wry smile, looking at her in amusement, "that after all these years, you haven't understood. And still you have said the words yourself. You should know what these words mean by now."

He was fading fast, and she could almost see nothing more of him than his burning mismatched eyes.

"Listen Sarah," he whispered urgently to her, "I'm never going to leave you, but I have no power over you. You must solve that riddle."

And with that remark he was gone.

She stood staring at the mirror for what seemed an eternity, then she slowly sank to the floor, and there she lay all night, not knowing whether she slept or not.

**********

When she came to her senses again, it was full daylight, and she felt as if she just barely had survived a terrible disease, all weak and shaking.

She thought about his last words and turned them over and over in her mind. Of course, she knew that she had said the words to him in the Underground when she claimed Toby, but what did he mean by bringing them up now? She had never felt more bereft of power than now, never more vulnerable and exposed than now, never more at his mercy than now, never more lacking a will of her own than now. What power did he mean that she possessed?

Numbly she managed to get up from the floor. ‘I should go home,' she thought, ‘but I can't make myself do it. At first, I have to sort this situation out somehow.'

She picked up the phone in her room and when connected to the Front Desk, asked to have an outside line. Then she dialed her home number. ‘It must be early morning in the States by now,' she thought, ‘I hope Dad is awake and that he will take the call. I don't think I could talk to Karen just right now.' She was lucky. After what seemed ages, she heard her father's faint voice on a very bad line.

"Sarah! How wonderful to hear from you!" She heard the joy in his voice. "When are you coming home? Shall I go to New York and pick you up?"

"Dad," she faltered a little, cringing before the lie she was going to serve him, "I have been invited to stay in Europe for a couple of weeks. I hope you don't mind my being away a little bit longer . . ."

There was a profound silence at the other end of the line. "Dad? Are you still there?" she asked anxiously.

"Funny, you know," her father said, "hadn't I known that it was you, I could have sworn I was talking to your mother. Your voices are so very much alike."

His comment hit her like a blow in the stomach. She nearly doubled over. She couldn't remember the last time when he talked to her about her mother. It must have been years since that happened. She didn't know what to say, but he continued as if almost talking to himself.

"She sounded just like that when she phoned from France and said to me that she wasn't going to come back — either to the States or to us."

"But Dad," she cried, "why do you say that? It isn't fair comparing me with Her in that way! Of course, I'm coming back. I'm just going to stay a little while longer, now that I'm here."

She stopped finding it almost unbearable to continue, not being able to make up any more lies and tangling herself into the ones she had presented already. She had to find a way to end the call and came up with yet another lie.

"Dad," she raised her voice, "the line is getting weaker all the time, a lot of extra noises, you know. I have to put the phone down now, but as soon as I know whether we are going to stay in Italy or not, I will call and let you know."

Then she closed the call and stood shaking beside the phone for a long while, repeatedly swallowing the bile that threatened to fill her mouth.

**********

Later on that day Sarah went out in the old city and wandered aimlessly about without any goal; she didn't want to do anything, see anything or meet anyone. She felt like a refugee from some terrible disaster. She stopped in a coffee shop for an espresso and some warmth — it was raining hard outside, and the winds were icy from north. She stayed at her table until a man came up to her and asked her in a low whisper, what she had to offer and her prices. She looked dumbfounded at him for a second; then she rose and left the table without a word. ‘Do I look like a prostitute?' she asked herself, ‘But why not? Maybe I should have stayed and found out what his unique obsession was.'

All of a sudden she found herself standing in a cul-de-sac by a small murky little canal, and she stopped as if this was the end of her journey. She stood unmoving, frozen, looking down at her image in the water. ‘It would be easy just to fall here,' she thought. ‘It would take ages before anyone missed me.'

"Don't," said a quiet voice behind her and someone gently took hold of her arm.

Sarah almost fell out of fright and turned around at the same time. There stood a strange, beautiful woman, whom she vaguely recognized from somewhere.

"I see that you don't remember me," the woman continued, "I'm Anna, and we met each other in Palazzo Corsari a little over a month ago."

Yes, now Sarah remembered and almost all too vividly.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, "How come we meet again just right here?"

She tried frantically to break free of Anna's grip, but the other wouldn't let go of her.

"Please trust me, I have come to fetch you and take care of you — and it seems I came at the very last minute — and if I say that Jareth knows I'm here, will that be enough for you to trust me?"

"Jareth," Sarah exclaimed, "what has he got to do with this? How do you know him?"

Anna smiled gently and said "So many questions. Please, please just trust me, and I will answer all of them in due course. It's vital now that we get you out of this terrible weather and that I can arrange for you to rest and gather strength."

Sarah felt then how exhausted she was, and she thought that going with Anna could at least not be worse than throwing herself in a canal. So she followed her out of the alley. Around the corner, a small covered motorboat was waiting, and the young man in charge carried her onboard and wrapped a blanket around her. Anna said something to him in Italian in a low voice and he nodded. Soon they were on their way, and Sarah shortly recognized her surroundings. They were evidently heading for her hotel.

Before she could open her mouth and ask why they were going there, Anna turned to her and said, "We are just going to pick up your things and settle whatever debts you have left there, and then we will leave. I even think that we will leave Italy, I'm tired of being here now. I thought for a moment that we could go to my flat in New York, but then again, that is a little too close to home for you just right now, and I can see that you need some time to sort things out before facing whatever awaits you there."

Sarah remained silent, wondering how Anna could know so much about her, but if Jareth was involved somehow, just about anything and any setup were possible; she should know that by now. So she closed her eyes, let go and settled back into the seat. She left it to Anna to do all the necessary practical things and she was asleep when Anna and her servant came back from the hotel with her luggage. She didn't even wake up when she was taken into Anna's house, and an elderly maid took off her clothes and put her to bed under an enormous eiderdown quilt.

**********

It was late morning when Sarah woke up, and she neither knew where she was or what day or time it was. She lay still for a while in the bed and listened to her frightened, beating heart and to strange noises from the strange house. Then she started to remember her meeting with Anna, and she sat up in bed only to see Anna sitting by the window reading a book. When Anna heard a movement from the bed, she turned and smiled.

"You have slept for ten hours, and I think that has done you some good after all. I will see to that you get something to eat and then I'll tell you about my plans."

She got up and went to the door and called out to an invisible servant, who soon brought a small breakfast tray.

Anna, who was dressed only in a silk kimono, sat down at the end of Sarah's bed and pulled her legs under her. She sipped on a large cup of coffee, and she remained peacefully silent while Sarah was eating. Sarah glanced furtively at her now and then. Anna looked younger today with her long blond hair falling loosely about her face and dressed in such an informal way. It was only when one looked her directly into the eyes and saw the depth of wisdom there that one could start wondering about her age.

Sarah drew up her legs under the comforter and put her arms around them as if seeking both comfort and protection. She looked at Anna, who now raised her gaze towards her, and they were looking at each other in silence for a while.

"You are very beautiful," Sarah said tentatively and Anna smiled and replied,

"So are you."

They looked steadily at each other again for a while, and then Sarah smiled too. Anna reached out a hand and lightly touched Sarah's forehead and Sarah rested her head on her knees and closed her eyes when Anna began to stroke her head as if comforting a frightened animal. It was something almost hypnotic about Anna's movements, and Sarah felt after a while that the cramp inside her body slowly dissolved.

"I'm so afraid," Sarah whispered at last.

"I know," Anna replied. "I know exactly how you feel, but hopefully it will all be better in a short while. The issues may not be solved right away, but you may be able to deal with them in a constructive manner at least."

"Now listen" Anna continued "to my immediate plans for us and tell me whether it will be all right with you. I thought of many places to go yesterday, but I finally decided that we will go home, meaning my home, if you don't mind that?"

"Where is your home?" Sarah asked.

"My home is in New Orleans." Anna smiled when she saw the expression of surprise in Sarah's face.

"But I thought you came from Europe," Sarah said taken aback.

"Living in New Orleans doesn't automatically make me American by birth, does it?" Anna laughed teasingly.

"Besides, New Orleans has a long "European" history. We had a foreign rule in Louisiana until 1803, remember? However, I assure you that I'm born in the city as well. I trust that New Orleans is at a safe distance from your home and that you don't know anyone there?"

At which Sarah replied with a "yes" and a "no" and it was settled that they would leave for New Orleans that very afternoon.

**********

Of the long flight, Sarah didn't remember much. She hated traveling that way and slept the better part of the journey. When they arrived in New Orleans international airport, it was evening, and stepping out into the warm night was a little bit of a shock after cold Venice. Although it was only April, there was talk of the first heat wave of the season and possibilities of thunderstorms. They were met by yet another of Anna's many servants — Sarah wondered how many they were all in all — a stately colored chauffeur, who only answered in monosyllables and raised an eyebrow when Sarah attempted to take care of her own luggage. He brought them safely into town — right to the heart of the city, the Old French Quarters — and he stopped in front of a small but graceful town house, situated in a quiet alley not far from the Ursuline Convent.

"Welcome to my home," Anna said and made a gesture towards the house.

"Is it all yours?" Sarah whispered incredibility creeping into her voice.

"Yes, it has been in my family for a very long time."

Anna ushered her through the big old oak-door and the next thing she knew, Sarah stood in a small inner courtyard filled with bushes of jasmine, mimosa and oleander. The noise of the city could hardly be heard here, only the hushed splash of a small fountain.

"I thought you should have the third floor with the good view and the balcony," Anna offered her. "I'll ask Aaron to take your luggage up there, and when you have freshened yourself a little, please come down to the garden, and we will have a drink before turning in for the night."

Anna was about to add something when the door to the house was opened and an old colored woman slowly made her way out into the courtyard.

"Miss Anna you're home!" the old lady called out in her wheezing voice.

"Celia!" Anna cried and rushed to meet her and threw herself into the offered embrace.

Sarah looked at them silently, observing that this was the first show of genuine emotions that she had seen Anna display, and she quietly eased her way into the house after Aaron, who carried her luggage upstairs, leaving Anna there to hug and be hugged, and suddenly Sarah felt extremely lonely.

She went down to the courtyard when she had washed her hands, and slumped into a wooden chair. ‘Jareth,' she thought, ‘you are chasing me around the world. Where will I end up and where ARE you?' She closed her eyes and almost instantly opened them again when she became aware of a light footfall nearby. A young beautiful girl approached her with a big silver tray balancing in her hands. The girl gingerly put the tray down on a table nearby and gave Sarah a big flashing smile. Anna appeared with a bottle of bourbon and a siphon.

"Let's do it the proper way, this first night," Anna said and poured her a small drink of bourbon and water.

Sarah rolled the sweet taste around her tongue and thought it suited the evening and the mood very well.

"I hope that you will be able to sleep after this long day," Anna continued. "If you need anything call for Georgina;" — she indicated the young girl, who was heading back towards the house — "she is sleeping in one of the rooms on the third floor, and she will attend to your every need."

"You have everything it seems, don't you? The whole world is at your feet," Sarah observed and cast a wondering glance in Anna's direction.

"No." Anna was quiet for a while. "I am poor in the sense that I lack the most essential things in life, but we shan't talk about that tonight. I will explain to you later."

They stayed in silence for a while with their drinks before saying good night and part company.

**********

Sarah learned Anna's story a couple of evenings later. They were sitting in the courtyard with drinks after dinner when Sarah asked, "How old are you, Anna?"

Anna looked at her for a long time before answering. Then she sighed deeply and said, "Had it been anyone else but you, I should have refused to answer or evaded the question, but since you have to know in the end because of Jareth, I will tell you. If ever there was a Gothic tale, my life is surely one," she added with a rueful smile.

"I was born here in New Orleans during the summer of 1792. My parents were refugees from the French Revolution. My mother hated it here in the delta. Not much land was permanently out of the water in those days, and people died like flies from malaria and other such diseases. Father was moderately successful in business, but of course he couldn't provide mother with all the luxury that she was used to. She was constantly wailing about everything she had lost. Then I was born, and she didn't look upon that fact as an improvement, I was told. In a fit of rage one day, she wished me away to the Goblin King. I have to say to her defense that she regretted her decision almost at once, but what was done couldn't be undone."

"At that time, Jareth's father was the Goblin King and I was saved to the life I'm living today by Jareth's mother. She took pity on me, maybe because I was the daughter she never could have — Jareth was her only child. She pleaded with Jareth's father to keep me in the form of a human, and he couldn't resist her tears in the end. So, I was never turned into a goblin, and I was to be allowed to walk the earth whenever I wanted. Already at this early stage in my "career" Jareth's father used me as a go-between because that is really what I still am. There are times when the Fay people cannot walk the earth freely and show themselves to whomever they wish, and that's the point where I — being born a human — come into the picture. They send me instead, like Jareth has done right now."

"Jareth's father took a great liking to me. He thought I would be the perfect playmate for his son. So I spent a lot of time with Jareth when we were growing up."

"Yes!" She held up a hand to stop Sarah from interrupting her when she heard Sarah take a deep breath. "I have slept with Jareth, of course I have. That was inevitable. But you needn't worry. It happened so very long ago, almost in another age. There is no other woman in his life now but you. He is consumed with you. And I have a love of my own, walking the earth, and I see him age slowly in front of my eyes."

A bitter note crept into Anna's voice.

"We age too, the likes of Jareth and the likes of me, but it literally takes ages. In the meantime, I'm also trying to persuade my love to come and share my life so that he could spend the half eternity with me that is at our disposal."

Sarah shivered lightly and felt a cold hand over her heart when hearing Anna's last words. She knew that they were also directed at her, telling her of Jareth's pursuit.

"My mother almost had a fit when I showed up several years later — it took a long time before I could bring myself to visit her. She thought I had come back for revenge and perhaps that was my initial idea. But she was already a broken woman when I saw her again. She had had another child after me, a boy, but he died and mother always looked upon that fact as her punishment for abandoning me. She left me a substantial fortune at her death and among other things, I bought this house. I needed a place where I could hide once in a while when I wasn't requested to go to the Underground."

Anna fell silent, and they both remained silent until Sarah, much to her own surprise, heard herself say, "My mother wished me away too in a sense." And then she began to cry.

Never before had she openly admitted to anyone, how immensely she grieved over the fact that her mother had chosen to leave her.

"My father thought he was talking to Her the other day when I called him, and I called to lie to him about the reasons for not going home. He said I sounded just like Her when She told him that She wouldn't come back to either us or the States."

Sarah cried so hard now that she could hardly talk. Anna didn't interrupt her, just looked intently at her.

"The worst part of it all," Sarah continued, "is that I UNDERSTAND Her for the first time in my life. I'm more or less exactly in the same dilemma. She had to make the awful choice of letting go of Her family or Her career. She chose to pursue the latter. I'm facing the choice of letting go of my family or the love of my life. I don't know what to do! I'm dying inside for having to make that choice!"

She turned her tearstained face towards Anna and formed her lips into the words "Help me!"

Anna rose from her chair and took hold of Sarah. She held her quietly until the tears had subsided.

"Why doesn't Jareth show himself to me if I mean that much to him? Hasn't he forgiven me for hesitating and stalling for time?" Sarah asked when she could talk again. "I don't know how many times I have called for him."

"Only if you don't have the slightest doubt in your mind about him, only if you believe fully in him, you can see him," Anna explained.

"But I don't doubt him," Sarah protested.

"Something deep down in you has put up a guard against him," Anna said. "I'm quite sure of that he is around. Of course, he can also will himself not to be visible. He is after all the Goblin King, and he is very powerful."

"Yet he said that he has no power over me . . ." Sarah's voice trailed off, and she looked warily around.

Anna poured out two more drinks and handed Sarah one. She sighed and raised her glass and smiled wryly.

"Here's to motherless children," she said, "it only shows that human nature will never change. What took place over two hundred years ago can still happen today. Not much comfort to be had from this fact though."

The first flash of lightning broke the sky in two.

"So, we're going to have a thunderstorm tonight," Anna observed, "I hope it clears the air, because it has been unbearably oppressive the last few days. Let's go inside."

**********

The humid air of the sultry night made it hard to breathe. Sarah lay naked on top of her bed, having thrown the covers aside. She could hear the muffled sounds of soaring traffic from the big city outside the house. The thunderstorm was now raging over the great lake nearby. She heard it only faintly but saw the flashes of lightning brightening the horizon. ‘I'm in a limbo and steadily falling,' she thought.

"Jareth," she moaned for the hundredth time, "Jareth, take pity on me and come to me. Haven't you forgiven me by now?"

She tossed around in the bed and felt the sweat covering her whole body. ‘If he were here, he would kiss and caress me,' she thought, and she wetted her fingers and began to squeeze her nipples. The moisture made her feel as if his mouth had just left them, and she couldn't resist continuing wetting and fondling them with her fingers. At the same time, she felt the heat in her sex, and she moved her hand to her cunt and pressed her hands to it, grinding herself against her hands. Her breath now came in small sharp intakes and little moans, and she rolled back and forth in the bed. She opened up the slit and hesitantly put a finger in the opening, and her juices instantly poured over her hand. Again she imagined that it was his finger probing her cunt walls, and she inserted two more, cramming herself relentlessly, tightening her muscles around them, sucking on them. She took the liquid of her juices and started to rub it around her breasts, squeezing them hard. Then she went for the swollen clit and began flicking it with her thumb. All the while she felt the heat building up inside her guts, begging for release, pulses beating heavily between her legs and her heart was hammering wildly.

"Jareth!" she groaned as she steadily approached her climax, and she began furiously working her sex, spreading her legs as if wanting to receive him in her arms and take him all in. At last she felt the muscles of her stomach tense and contract, and the blissful relief finally came. She screamed his name and opened her eyes wide.

And then she saw him standing by her bed, bent over her.

She couldn't stop the searing orgasm shaking her body, but when it was over, she hid her face in her hands, curled up and rolled away from him, hiding her shame. She felt the bed move as he crawled on it, and the next moment he encircled her in his strong arms and she felt his heavy weight. She heard him purr deep down in his throat, and then he whispered in her ear

"Why do you hide? You are the most beautiful one I've ever seen. You are the sexiest thing that ever happened to me, coming off on the mere thought of me."

She buried her head in the pillow and still wouldn't turn to him. He put his hands on her breasts and began to knead them gently.

"Oh God, I'm horny," he groaned, his mouth in her hair, "I want you so badly."

When she still refused to look at him, he brusquely turned her around in his arms and made her face him. His nostrils flared with excitement, and he had bared his pointed teeth as if prepared to bite her. Finally, she yielded and stopped fighting him and then the tears came. Something within her snapped and her long pent-up anguish gave away. His gaze softened, and he began to kiss her all over the face, licking her tears and her eyelids.

"Even your tears turn me on," he mumbled as his lips traveled over her cheek down to her neck.

He rocked her gently in his arms until she had stopped crying, and then he dried her cheeks and made her blow her nose.

"Tell me," he said softly.

She cleared her throat, but her voice was still a hoarse whisper, exhausted from crying.

"Anna said that I would have to believe in you beyond the shadow of a doubt, for you to appear to me. And I do, you know, I DO believe in you! I don't know how many times I have called for you since you disappeared in Venice and you didn't show up."

"When you call for me, you shouldn't call from here" — he touched her forehead — "do it from here" — he caressed her breasts — "or better still from here" — he put his warm heavy hand on her stomach and pressed it gently.

She gave a short gasp, as the heat from his hand spread within her. He let his hand remain for a while where he had put it and then slowly, as if by accident, he let his index finger travel farther down and slip into her wet cunt, exploring and probing her tender walls. Her hips bucked involuntarily, as he dipped yet another finger into her, and she let out a low moan. He pressed his palm firmly against her mound as he still worked his fingers inside her, and then he bent down and kissed her. His eyes remained open, and the soft and savage burning within them mesmerized her. He took his fingers from her opening and started to draw tiny wet circles around her swollen nipples. She shuddered at his touch and leaned back into the bed, exposing more of her body to him. She saw him smile, and she heard a low, soft chuckle from him, as if he couldn't hide how much he was enjoying the situation.

He kicked off his boots and untied the complicated knots in his soft linen shirt. With a groan, he rolled on top of her again and rubbed his naked breast against hers. Then he began to explore her with his tongue.

He licked her ear and then he moved down to the hollow of her neck, continuing his slow journey down between her breasts. There he made a halt to concentrate for a while on her nipples. Moving to the first one, he wetted it with his tongue and scraped his teeth over it, gently tugging at it until it was all stiff and swollen. Then he unhurriedly moved over to pay the same attention to the other one. She squirmed under him and mewled softly in answer to the mounting waves of pleasure.

He trailed a line of fire and desire over her body with his tongue, now dipping into her navel and circling it, then continuing down to her swollen vulva. He took her clit between his lips and sucked it in between his teeth and flicked his tongue over it with quick lashing strokes. At the same time, he again filled her cunt with his fingers, sliding them in and out of her in a frenzied movement. Her hips now undulated in rhythm with his hand and tongue, and her moans grow to high groans. When it seemed as if she was on the point of no return, he slowed down and wrapped his arms around her again, not permitting her to climax just yet. She closed her eyes and breathed in short staccato intakes. He kissed her ferociously with his mouth wet from her juices, and she could hear him moaning low as he pressed and rubbed his rock-hard erection against her stomach.

Then he sat up straddling her hips with his powerful legs and began to rid himself of his now disheveled clothing. She looked at him when he released his swollen cock and she watched his fingers stroke over it. There was still a mischievous smile in his eyes, although they were now veiled with carnal hunger, his face a mask of desire.

She was absolutely and totally focused upon the pleasure she was about to receive, nothing else in the world existed just right now. She raised her hips towards him and felt him guiding his cock closer to her wet opening, rubbing it gently and then sliding into her. She sucked in her breath at the first sensation of him entering her, and when she exhaled her whole body pushed a cry out of her. She arched upwards, meeting him, and wrapped her legs around his waist to enable him to enter her still deeper. He took a firm grip of her hips controlling the movements, still unhurried. She could feel him throb inside her, and she tightened her inner muscles around him.

He bent down over her and kissed her, licking his way all over her face, biting her lips, sucking on her earlobes. He moved his hands to her shoulders taking a firm grip of them and at the same time he changed the rhythm of his movements and began thrusting in and out of her in hard, long and quickening strokes. She rocked with him, and her gasps for breath turned into groans of pleasure. Then he almost withdrew, letting only the tip of his cock stay between her folds, and he brusquely turned her around, spreading her legs on either side of his hips. He fell on top of her and at the same time he savagely pushed his swollen thickness so deep inside her that she thought he would penetrate her womb. The new angel of penetration caused new sensations hitherto unknown to her. She cried out loud with his every thrust and almost lost her breath under his weight. He fully possessed her now, and he mastered her every reaction to the smallest detail. She felt the oncoming orgasm as an ache that slowly traveled her whole body. Utterly helpless as she was under him, she fought for some control over the situation and twisted in his arms. She managed to reach down between her legs and found his balls. She clasped her hand around them and fondled them ever so gently, fingering the base of his shaft where it entered her body. He sank his teeth into her shoulder and moaned and his now uncontrolled movements told her that he was approaching his climax too. At last she turned herself over to the awesome shudder that started at her toes and worked its way up to her scalp and shook her entire body, and at the same time she felt him contract and pulsate under her hand as he cried out and flooded her with his hot liquid. Then he collapsed over her body and they lay inert, totally spent. She could feel his heart beating heavily against her back, and their breathing was the only sound breaking the silence.

**********

Later on, in the early hours of the morning, he carried her to the bathroom. Georgina saw them, but scurried away quickly, hiding behind a curtain, not wanting to make her presence known. They stood in the shower holding on to each other closely, just letting the water pour down over their heads.

Outside it was raining, the thunderstorm having departed. He held her gently, close to his body. There was no desire between them for the moment, only a great contentment. It was cool and soothing and very relaxing. But soon enough Sarah started to shiver lightly with cold, and Jareth wrapped her in a bath towel and carried her back to her sleeping chamber.

"Let's sleep," he yawned stretching his body and flexing his muscles like a big cat, "God, I'm tired."

She moved close to him and wrapped a leg around his hips. "So, you're not leaving me now then?" she asked.

"No," he murmured in her hair, "I'm going to sleep here with you, and we're going to make a nuisance of ourselves, not leaving the bed until very late, and then we're going to have the most gorgeous breakfast in the garden, and then maybe we will make love again, and then I'm going to take you out for dinner."

"Oh, stop it!" She slapped him playfully on the chest. "You're just rambling now. By the way, what do you mean by taking me out for dinner? How could we go to dinner?"

"Of course we can go to dinner, why not, don't you have dinners in your part of the world?" She heard the mirth in his voice.

"I often go to dinner here in New Orleans. It's one of my favorite places in fact."

Her eyes darkened a shade. "Do you stay with Anna then on these occasions?"

His eyes narrowed to slits that glittered teasingly and mischievously.

"Oh, I believe my Honey is jealous," he mocked her gently and cradled her in his arms.

She sniffed and tried to maintain some dignity. But he laughed softly and drew her body against his with mild force until she relented and cuddled up to him.

"You needn't be," he murmured sleepily, lips pressed to her forehead, "it should indeed be beneath my Queen to be jealous of anyone or anything."

She heard him fall asleep and before she knew it, she slept too.

**********

When Sarah woke up, she was alone in the bed; she sat up and her heart began immediately to hammer in fear. She saw his note on the table beside the bed and snatched it. "I'm so sorry that I can't have the leisurely day with you the way I wanted, but an urgent matter has come up that can’t wait. However, I will come for you in the evening as I promised."

She stepped out of bed and went downstairs. The house seemed totally deserted. Then Georgina appeared and asked if she wanted breakfast although it was late morning.

"Where is everyone?" Sarah asked.

"Missy Anna is away with the car. She and the . . . gentleman left together. And Celia is visiting the convent. Me and Cook are here," Georgina concluded.

So, Jareth and Anna had left together. The demons of jealousy again tugged at her heart, and she felt very much deserted and left out.

She wasn't especially hungry but had something to eat after all. To occupy herself, she offered to help with the shopping and went to the French Market and was all happy for a while among the tables, overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables.

In the afternoon when she had returned to the house, she wandered listlessly about, feeling as if she didn't belong anywhere and least of all here. Finally, she decided to find a book to read and went into the library. Her father had once said that a person's library told you more or less everything you wanted to know about its owner's character. There she came across an old album with snapshots. The pictures were old, prewar even, and it was so strange to recognize Anna in them. She knew with her mind that Anna was immensely old compared with earth-standards, but it was another matter to see actual proof of this fact.

She fell asleep among the books and woke up when someone lightly kissed her nose. Jareth stood bent over her chair, and it was already dark outside.

"What time is it? Where is Anna?" she asked.

"It is six o'clock in the evening and Anna hasn't returned," he answered. "I doubt if she will come back this night. But why worry about her? She will take care of herself, and I will take care of you and take you out to dinner."

He effortlessly lifted her from the chair and carried her upstairs. He put her down on the bed and stood in his magnificent black cape in front of her. His eyes were dancing with amusement.

"Of course, obviously I can't go out to dinner here, dressed like this. People would indeed wonder and tell me that Mardi Gras was over long ago. So, we have to decide where to go, and I shall dress accordingly."

Before she could answer, he quickly threw light into her eyes, and when she could see again, he stood in front of her in a smart Armani suit made of grey silk. The boots now reached his ankles instead of his knees, and his unruly hair was tied in a ponytail with a small leather band.

"However," he continued, "we may not want to go to a fancy French restaurant. Perhaps you prefer the excellent but shabby seafood joint in Algiers across the river?"

And he did another turn on the floor, and the next time she managed to open her eyes, he was dressed in tight and well worn jeans and an old but expensive linen shirt.

"Oh, stop it!" she cried and started to laugh. "You make me all dizzy!"

He stopped indeed and went up to her and took her face in his hands and looked at her with so much wild love in his eyes that she fell silent in awe.

"You know something?" he murmured in a low voice. "This is the very first time that I've made you laugh. The sound of your laughter is killing me."

And he bent down over her and kissed her with ferocious tenderness.

"If you don't let me go now, we will not make it to a restaurant at all," she teased him against his lips, and he reluctantly released her.

"By the way," she added, "I think I'm more tempted by the seafood joint than by the posh restaurant, so keep your jeans on."

She went to the closet and found a linen dress in off white that she thought suited the occasion. It didn’t seem expensive or fancy but flowed over her body like a caress or an extra skin. She could see in his eyes that it met with his approval.

They decided to have a drink in the garden before leaving. Sarah wanted to pour the drinks, but when she lifted the decanter, she found a little bit too late that it was too heavy for her. It slipped from her hands and hit the table just as Jareth was trying to save it and it broke in hundreds of pieces.

She saw at once that he had cut his hand, and she reached out for him and cried, "Oh, I'm so sorry, please let me take care of your hand," and she brought forth a handkerchief.

His reaction scared her violently.

"Don't!" he exclaimed with fury and fear in his face and his voice. "Don't touch me!"

He had almost bared his teeth, and she was backing away from him, trembling and white. He quickly put his hand to the small wound, and she saw it heal and disappear in front of her eyes. Then he exhaled with a deep sigh, and his face looked almost normal again; he went up to her and when she backed away, he got hold of her arm and drew her into his embrace.

"Please listen to me, I will explain it all to you, please, please stop trembling, I'm not going to hurt you."

At last she was at rest in his arms, and he turned her face up towards him so that he could look her into the eyes.

"You mustn't touch my blood," he whispered in a low voice. "My blood could change your life forever. If you get in contact with it, you will enter my realm and be an equal to Anna and the likes of her. That is how my mother gave Anna her long life. Anna came to her as a baby, I'm sure you know that, and my mother pierced her nipples until they started bleeding and made Anna suckle. I will not hide that I want you to come and live with me and share my life in all its details. But I will not trick you into it. It's a decision that I hope that you one day will make out of your own free will."

**********

Sarah was still shaking inside from the incident in the afternoon when they reached the restaurant, but she decided with an effort of willpower that this should not spoil her entire evening. She had set her mind to enjoy this rare occasion. Jareth chose lobster and a very dry white wine for them. The smoky bar was filled with people and the din was enormous, so they moved to a quiet corner, where the conversations faded to a constant murmur and blended with the sound of music from a nearby dance hall. Sarah wasn't very hungry but not bothered by the fact tonight. Jareth ate with a ravenous appetite, and she just marveled sitting across the table watching him. ‘This is happening in the middle of nowhere,' she thought. ‘It is an interlude, a lull in the storm. What has happened up until now is of no consequence and of the future we know nothing.'

"Come, come," he broke off her trail of thoughts, "you're not eating."

"Yes, I am, I'm eating you," she smiled and reached out to touch his hand, and he smiled too and let her explore his long supple fingers and the palm of his hand.

Later they went out onto the wooden balcony that faced the river and the still boisterous traffic there. The river never slept, and there was a constant movement of vessels traveling both upstream and downstream. Jareth rested his elbows on the wooden railing, and Sarah wrapped her arms around him from behind and moved her body close to him. A lazy evening breeze tugged at her skirt and her hair. He obviously enjoyed the contact with her because he leaned back a little to feel more of her breasts and stomach against his back. She smiled resting her head on his shoulder. The night was full of fireflies and mosquitoes, and one little beast flew past her eyes and landed on his neck close to a prominent vein. The sight of the small, lethal creature hypnotized her, and she didn’t breathe or move. At first, Jareth didn't seem to notice it, then he made an irritated gesture towards his neck, and the mosquito lifted reluctantly. In its wake, a drop of blood formed that slowly began to run down his neck. Totally mesmerized by now, she leaned into him, moving in extreme slow motion, and she caught the drop of blood on her tongue and licked it up.

At that very moment, something exploded within her and a searing pain shot through her body. He instantly stiffened and turned around at the same time. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her and before he could say anything she stammered,

"It is done. I have done it!"

And then she fell to the ground.

When she regained consciousness he was carrying her upstairs in Anna's quiet house, and she couldn’t see the expression on his face, hidden in the shadows, but she felt the rapid and hard beating of his heart. He put her down, rather roughly, on the bed and lit the lamp in the ceiling; she blinked in the glaring light and looked silently at his stern, beautiful face with white vibrating nostrils and a mouth set to a thin line.

"Why?" he bit out through his clenched teeth. "To spite me, to defy me, to play with me? Don't forget, you belong to me now!"

"Yes!" She was visibly shaking, but she rose to her feet confronting him.

"Yes, I belong to you now, forever I suppose, yet you have no power over me as I have no power over you and this time I understand why."

Her eyes were glimmering with a strange light, reflections of his light.

He went close to her and dug his fingers into her shoulders and shook her again as if words weren’t adequate for what was happening to them. Then he ripped the dress from her body and tore her underwear to shreds. He drew her naked body towards his, lifted her up and fell with her onto the bed. He rid himself of clothes with a flick of his hand, and then he rose to his knees spreading her legs wide apart. He held her hips hard while he entered her and filled her with brusque, urgent, savage strokes. She cried out, but she didn't fight him, knowing there was no stopping him now. As he tensed, and his whole body started to shake with violent spasms, he bore down on her neck and buried his teeth there, causing her excruciating pain, sucking and biting her as he released himself deep within her. Then he shuddered and his body slowly relaxed on top of hers, and she felt against her bruised neck that he began to cry when his tears flowed beneath her ear into her hair. She sighed deeply, and she wrapped her legs and arms around him and began to rock him, sensing his rage and sorrow; this time comforting him instead of the other way around.

"Forgive me," he whispered in her hair.

At last, the rhythm of his heart became steadier and his breathing more normal and he raised his head. He looked at her now with calm, serious and very dark eyes. Then he rolled off her and turned her around in his arms so that they lay facing each other. He put two fingers against the bruise on her neck, and she felt a strange tingling feeling as he made it vanish.

"In the beginning, after you had crumbled my world for the first time and left with Toby, I wanted to kill you," he began with a voice hardly audible.

"I watched you greedily through the years, biding my time, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. It thrilled me that you started to seek me out, never knowing what I had in store for you, and I liked the idea of how you became more and more addicted to my company up until the point when you wanted me to share your bed in all innocence. But I was totally unprepared for the exquisite feeling of having you in my arms sleeping in total trust of me. I lay awake the whole night just holding you and looking at you, and I was bewildered and furious at the same time. I had to come back for this sensation again and again until I realized that I wanted your company as much as you wanted mine, and I kept away, hating you for invading my life and breaking my guard."

"When you went to Venice I saw my chance. It would be so much easier to destroy you away from home, and Venice is a place I have many opportunities in. But first, I decided, I would have you. I had waited for it so long and my guts burned. I was consumed with the thought of your naked body beneath mine."

He closed his eyes for a moment, took her hand and pressed her fingers against his lips. She remained silent but moved her hand in a feathery caress, giving solace to his feverish face.

"Then I had you there, cornered in front of me," he continued warily.

"Never had I wanted anything so much in my whole life, as I wanted you then. But when I took possession of you, you took possession of me and again you broke me into thousand pieces. In a flash, I realized that you wanted and loved me more than you feared me. I had no power over you; I never have, because I have loved you ever since I set eyes on you. You defeated me already from the start."

He was silent for a while as if contemplating his last words; then he went on.

"I tried to keep away from you, but seeing your despair it was impossible. Yet I didn't know how you would react to the thought of sharing my life — by the way, I still don't — and I thought that you needed time to think and perhaps someone to talk to other than me, so I sent Anna to take care of you."

"Then I heard you calling, it was like a scream within me, and I had no option but to come to you. And I am still here although I fear that I will bring you more sorrow than happiness, and I don't know how the future will be solved. You have chosen, and it can't be undone. I don't know if you fully realize the implications of your choice, but . . . your will is as strong as mine, and I fear that there is a battle ahead of us."

She raised herself, resting on an elbow, and looked down on him. Then she started kissing him lightly all over the face; on his eyelids and nose, on his prominent cheekbones and lips, and she began feathering languid caresses over his neck and breast. He released his grip on her and fell back into the bed, and the cramps seemed to leave him at last. She sat up and moved both her hands over his body, feeling the softness of his skin and the hardness of his muscles beneath. Lower and lower her hands traveled over him until reaching the silver-golden hair at the base of his sex that began to swell at the touch of her fingers. He shivered with pleasure as she traced her fingers along his inner thighs, and he spread his legs as if begging for more touches, more caresses.

She replaced her fingers with her tongue and licked her way up his thigh until she reached his sack that she gently cupped in her hand. A groan escaped him, and she felt him twisting under her, but he didn't interfere with her explorations, evidently relishing playing the passive part for once. She moved her fingers to his now swollen, rock-hard cock and started tracing its full length, feeling the silk-soft skin, raking her nails over the hardness, making him squirm beneath her hands. Then she gingerly put her tongue to the tip of the sensitive head, lapping up the droplets of clear, salty liquid that had formed there. She took him into her hot mouth and sucked hard on him, letting her tongue dance over him. He couldn't help thrusting deeper, and she let him glide across her tongue towards the back of her throat. He trashed in the bed and the breath was pushed out of him as his stomach muscles tensed and his swollen cock was throbbing in her mouth. He clenched and unclenched his fists and arched his hips upwards, meeting her every movement. She lashed her tongue over the head with more and more frenzy. She added to his pleasure when she started stroking his shaft with her hand in rhythm with her sucking and licking. His moaning grew louder and his whole body jerked now, tensed to the maximum. Then he let out a wailing cry and exploded in her mouth, filling it with his hot cream that she lapped up and greedily swallowed, and he writhed a few more times as she milked the last drops out of him before letting him go; he fell back onto the bed, and she dropped down between his legs, her head coming to rest on his stomach. She felt the throbbing between her legs and her body yearned for satisfaction, but she smiled and thought ‘This one was for you only.'

She didn't know how long she lay on top of him, perhaps sleeping perhaps not, dreaming wild disturbed dreams just below the surface of consciousness. She broke the surface, because the need grew within her. She touched his soft penis with her hand and blow gently on it. He stirred, and she felt that he woke up. His hand came down and moved over her head and under her hair, caressing her neck. Then he sat up beside her, and he lifted her and turned her into his embrace. She eased her hand down between them finding his cock. He was already hard and her need was so great and urgent that she couldn't wait. With feverish hands, she guided him into her hot wetness, engulfing him, sucking his swollen flesh with her inner muscles. He caught her by the shoulders with strong hands, steadying her. Then he put an arm around her waist supporting her back; he moved his free hand to her hot and wet opening, seeking out her clit with his thumb. He worked it relentlessly in rhythm with the convulsive movements of their dancing hips. She held on to him as if a storm was wrecking her when her orgasm shook her and drained her, and although this was coupling out of pure need, her climax was the most fulfilling she had experienced. Sated, she let him stretch her out beneath him, and he pinned her arms to the bed and with gentle fury he satisfied himself, filling her with his juices. Then he lifted his head and looked down on her, and she saw him smiling in the dark.

"If this is your way of killing me softly, then I'm prepared to die a thousand deaths."

He stroked her hair and added tenderly "Don't you think that we should try to catch some sleep now? We need to rest a while."

"Tomorrow you will be gone again," she sighed exhausted, and the fatigue brought tears to her eyes.

"No," he replied softly, "I give you my word that I will be here when you wake up tomorrow. Will you promise me that you will try to sleep a little now?"

She nodded in silence, and he slid down into the bed and put his head to rest on her breast.

But sleep eluded her. In her thoughts, she tried to come to terms with her situation. ‘This is an interlude,' she repeated to herself, picking up the thread of thought from earlier in the evening. ‘The old life is over and the new hasn't begun, and I must somehow gather strength in this pause to be able to continue.'

At last the breeze of the night stirred the curtains and cooled her burning and moist face; it brought with it an intense fragrance of jasmine, mimosa and oleander, blending with the strong and musky scent of their lovemaking that still filled the room....


	3. LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jareth is once more a part of Sarah's life and destiny in this story of obsession and ultimate seduction. The two previous chapters tells of their meeting in Venice and how the story develops in New Orleans, where Sarah has followed Anna to sort out her feelings and gather strength, but where Sarah also impulsively and irrevocably changes her life forever.
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> _Sarah is in no way prepared for the consequences, and she doesn't know how to face them and make life go on at the same time. Confrontations with Jareth are inevitable since they are both passionate and headstrong, and Sarah gets to know of sides to Jareth's character she hasn't reckoned with. In the end, she has to make a long journey in space and mind to find what she wants._
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> Text copyright 2001 - 2014 by Thomcats aka VoyaMariner. All rights reserved.  
> July 2014 Thomcats VoyaMariner.
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**LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER?**

Late in May Sarah was flying from Boston to New York. She was going to stay with Anna for a while at Anna's invitation and it felt like a relief to Sarah to be on her way at last, leaving the turmoil of her homecoming behind her. The more proper physical distance she could put between herself and her home just right now, the easier it was to think about what had happened.

********** 

Anna had been the one to finally convince Sarah that it was necessary for her to return home. There could be no way of postponing facing her family any longer. Sarah had been very apprehensive about the fact, but Anna had tried to calm her and said that everything was going to be all right once she was there and that Sarah magnified her fears of confronting her father and stepmother. They wouldn't notice any visible difference about her, save perhaps for the fact that she had matured during her absence. Anna had also promised to call her the moment she came to her flat in New York, and she had informed Sarah that she intended to go there within two weeks time. 

They had deliberately kept off the subject of Jareth. 

The first meeting with her family was sweet enough. The moment she flew into her father's embrace, she felt with a pang in her heart how much she had missed him, missed all of them. Karen hugged her for a long time and marveled at how grown up and beautiful she looked. Toby wouldn't let her go. She had to pick him up and carry him and he wrapped his little arms around her, never wanting to release his tight hold of her neck. Finally, Karen managed to catch his attention when promising all of them coffee and ice cream in the garden and with a shout of delight he let go of Sarah and scurried out onto the terrace. It had been a beautiful and hot Sunday in May, and the garden was looking at its best. 

Sarah could think with joy and happiness of the afternoon when everybody was busy opening the presents she had brought them from Europe and the excellent dinner her stepmother had prepared for her. She had been especially happy about the fact that Toby seemed extremely pleased with the Harlequin doll that she had bought for him. Toby kept it in his hand and wouldn't let go of it, not even to let his parents have a closer look. 

But the day had drawn to a close and finally Sarah found herself alone in her room. She had stood unmoving for what seemed an eternity, listening to the silence. The room was so small, so clean, so innocent; it belonged to somebody else, someone who didn't exist anymore. She felt a mounting anxiety, and she looked around everywhere for signs of Jareth, but she couldn't feel his presence in any way. In the end, she decided to go to bed hoping to catch some sleep at least; this would certainly be the best medicine she could think of. 

Sarah remembered falling asleep almost instantly, but she woke up in the hour between night and daybreak and found that she had been crying. She realized that she had been dreaming, but she didn't remember her dream. Her throat was parched and her mouth dry and she felt she had to get something to drink. She went to the bathroom situated on the same floor as her own bedroom. The house was extremely quiet; she didn't even hear her own footsteps in the corridor, although she knew that if one stepped carelessly, the old boards would squeak loudly enough. She opened the door to the bathroom and stared unbelievingly into a black void. Instead of the bathroom, she found herself looking at what appeared to be an underground passage. It was totally dark and triggered a memory long forgotten in her mind – the oubliettes in the Labyrinth. She screamed and screamed and fell to the ground, losing her conscience. 

The next thing she remembered was being in her own bed in her own room with Karen sitting by her side looking down at her with great concern. Karen told her that she had found her on the bathroom floor and that her father was calling the doctor. Sarah remained silent shivering both from fever and fear. 

The doctor thought she had caught the flu — this contagious disease was raging through her home town for the moment — and he prescribed a medicine to ease the effects of the fever and ordered her to stay in bed and not excite herself in any way. It was a relief to Sarah to stop pretending and show exactly what she felt at the moment, exhaustion and depression, and she calmed down inside. Toby came to keep her company, and that also took her mind off things. 

"I've already had the flu," he said and looked quite pleased about the fact. "When you were away. So I can be with you. Mom and Dad can't, so I've got to look after you," he added with an air of importance. 

She couldn't but laugh at him. He jumped up into her bed and snuggled up to her and whispered excitedly, "I've got a secret!" 

He looked as if he could barely contain himself. 

"I couldn't tell you yesterday because Mom and Dad mustn't know." 

"So tell me now," she urged him, "I'm dying to know." 

"I've seen him!" Toby breathed in her ear, his cheeks blushing with excitement. Sarah's eyes widened and the smile left her face. 

"When! Tell me when he was here!" 

Neither Toby nor Sarah had mentioned a name. They both knew of whom they were talking. 

Just before her homecoming, in fact, the day before, Toby had met Jareth in the garden. 

"I recognized him at once," Toby said, "and he said he was so pleased to see me again. And I thought it was nice too. It was fun being with him. I wasn't scared at all." 

Sarah closed her eyes. She knew all too well how extremely charming Jareth could be if that served his purpose. It seemed as if Jareth and Toby had toured the house, Jareth evidently wanting to "survey the grounds" if one might call it that. Toby had been a little bit puzzled by the fact that Mom and Dad were nowhere to be seen. He was so sure of that they were still in the house, but they must have gone out into the garden or taken the car to run an errand or something. When they had looked the house over, they had moved outside again, and Jareth had lifted himself and Toby to the top of the highest tree in the garden. 

"It was such FUN!" Toby exclaimed. "We were flying! And it was marvelous sitting in a tree looking down on everything and knowing that we couldn't be seen. He said that he would be back and that we could do some more flying then." 

Sarah closed her eyes again and started to shiver; she knew she had to tell Jareth next time she met him that she would NOT accept that he contacted Toby without her permission. 

Sarah recovered slowly, perhaps because she didn't try in earnest. She slept copiously and hardly had anything to eat at all. She heard Dad and Karen talking with worried voices outside her door. Dad mentioned college, and she knew what that meant as well. She had ruined a whole term being away for so long. She knew that she had to deal with that problem too but later, not today, later. 

********** 

Anna brought her out of her lethargy, moving into her life, playing the guardian angel yet again. Sarah was sitting in the kitchen sipping tea, when Karen called from the living room, 

"There's a friend of yours calling from New York. I don't recognize her voice. Someone you met in Europe?" 

Sarah could clearly hear the curiosity in Karen's voice. She quickly left the table, feeling the blood quicken in her veins and she rushed upstairs. 

"I'll take the call in my room if you don't mind," she shouted from the top of the landing. 

"You've been ill your stepmother said?" There was a cautious question in Anna's voice. 

"Yes," Sarah replied, "but I'm almost out of it now, feeling quite fine in fact. So many things have happened, so many things that I don't understand and that nearly scared me to death," she continued hurriedly almost in one breath. "Please can I come to you and talk to you and hopefully you can explain. . ." 

"Please, please Sarah," Anna interrupted her almost laughing now. "Catch your breath and let me get a word in too. I called to invite you down to New York, but if you're not well maybe we will have to postpone it?" 

"No!" Sarah cried, "I'll come as soon as I can. There is just one thing I have to do first and that is to see my instructor in college. He has contacted me, and I must see him and discuss what needs to be done with my studies. I should have been back in college in early April at the latest, and now I've missed the term after Spring Break. But I will be with you after that visit since I'm on sick leave just right now until the end of June. Doctor said something about my blood tests not being quite all right and that he needed to check them over again. . ." 

Sarah's voice trailed off and there was a brief pause. 

"It's settled then," Anna concluded, "be sure to call me the minute you're on your way," and she gave Sarah her phone number. 

********** 

It was breathtaking to be with Anna again. Sarah suddenly felt all alive. Anna's apartment in New York was no disappointment either, and Sarah had learned by now to expect only the very best, knowing that Anna had the wealth to acquire what she wanted and also that she had had enough time to pick her choices. Anna lived in a penthouse at the top of a tall building looking out over the Hudson River. The penthouse had two stories, and there was a balcony attached to the top floor. 

"You can also go out on the roof of the building if you want to," Anna said, "but you don't know who or what you might meet there. There are other people, who have access to the roof as well, and if you are scared of heights, I don't recommend it. I much prefer my balcony, which is safe and where I can be incognito." 

The first night, at sunset when the shadows were getting longer and deeper when they were sitting out on the balcony with drinks, Sarah told Anna the incredible story about her meeting with her professor in college, this being the first of the many strange new things happening to her that Sarah wanted to discuss with Anna. 

She had arrived in college being very apprehensive, mentally rehearsing a defense speech, but her teacher, Mr David, greeted her warmly and took her into his study and placed her in a comfortable chair. On his desk, there was a sizable volume of hand-typed papers. When Mr David left the room in search of coffee for both of them, she sat staring at the heap of papers, her mind suddenly going blank. She became aware of that the contents of this big essay slowly seeped into her consciousness, and she knew out of the blue that it was an essay written by her, concerning research she had made in Italy on the Commedia dell'Arte Theater and its influence on modern comedy; she knew how many pages it contained, and she could see the different photos she had included, and she felt at once extremely dizzy and cold sweat broke out all over her face. Mr David found her slumping in the chair, and he became extremely worried and alarmed. 

"Oh, I know that you've been ill," he exclaimed, "perhaps you shouldn't have come so soon after all." 

He rushed to get her a glass of water, and Sarah recovered a little after drinking some. She straightened in the chair and kept her silence. Better let Mr David do all the talking under the circumstances. 

"Feeling better?" he inquired and continued almost at once. "At first, when you called from Italy and said that you wanted to do research for your paper there, I was very skeptical but seeing this result I must say that I'm very impressed indeed." 

While he was talking, her mind acquired knowledge about the telephone call that she was supposed to have made to him. 

"It is certainly well above average standard, and I'm going to give you a top grade for this work. As far as the rest of the finals go, it's hard to tell at this very minute how you will be able to cope, being on sick leave as it is. However, there will be a second chance to complete the finals at the end of June before Summer Break, and if you are well enough by then to pull it through, you would certainly benefit from it. In the meantime, I'll give you a list of books to read if you think you can handle that, and please feel free to contact me at any time if you need advice." 

On this happy note, their meeting had ended, and she had left his office totally dazed and confused. All the way to the airport to catch her flight to New York, she kept repeating to herself, ‘Why? Why has Jareth done this to me?' And now she directed this question to Anna. 

"Why? Tell me why?" 

"I could only guess," Anna answered slowly, "but it is so hard to try to divine his motives. You will have to ask him yourself. And I'm quite sure you will," she added smiling when she saw Sarah's mouth settle into a thin line. 

Then Sarah went on to tell Anna about all other disturbing things that had happened to her since her return home; how Jareth had contacted Toby, her dreadful experience in the bathroom and the mere fact that the doctor had given her a certificate of illness until the end of June when she actually didn't feel very sick at all. 

"To me it sounds as if Jareth is the one stalling for time now," Anna mused. 

She leaned forward and took one of Sarah's hands. 

"I gather that what happened to you in the bathroom is really what disturbs you the most, that's true isn't it?" And Sarah nodded silently. 

"However," Anna went on, "this is something that you will have to learn to live with. I do understand that it must have been a frightful scare. No one has prepared you in any way for what awaits you in the future." 

"You see," she continued after a short pause, "this is part of your new life. I know of course what you decided to do when you were in New Orleans, and I also know that Jareth is furious with you for not thinking your situation over beforehand, although he asked you to." 

At these last words, Sarah bowed her head and sighed deeply. 

"I only wanted to be sure that I would not ever be parted from him again; that was all I was thinking of at the moment," she whispered. 

"This new life means among other features that you can see things that ordinary people cannot see and go places where they cannot go. You can for example enter and leave the Labyrinth on you own, and you will be able to see all the creatures that live in there." 

"But I don't want to go into the Labyrinth again," Sarah interrupted vehemently. 

"But my dear," Anna looked at her with compassion, "you ARE already in the Labyrinth; it is all around you." 

"What do you mean?" Sarah cried and stared at Anna in anguish. "I've been there! I know what it looks like!!" 

Anna now held on to both of Sarah's hands as if trying to comfort her and calm her down. 

"Sarah, when you first entered the Labyrinth you had certain ideas of what it would be like. You had read books and played fantasy games. Then of course the Labyrinth looked the way you expected it to look and so did Jareth's castle and the Goblin City and all the rest. But now you have to learn that the Labyrinth can look like anything, and you can't tell from one time to the other what to expect – a little like meeting Jareth, don't you think so? This is the heart and core and the meaning of the Labyrinth; no person will experience it in the same way." 

When tears started to roll over Sarah's face, Anna gently caressed her cheek and said 

"Come, come, I know you are a brave, young woman, you can manage, I know that. But I will help you out with some basic facts about moving around in the Labyrinth now that you are a part of it," she added. 

"Let's start with paying a visit to the King, and then I will show you how to come and go there all by yourself." 

********** 

Anna remembered that she had an invitation to an art exhibition at the Guggenheim and said to Sarah that this would offer an excellent opportunity for them. Sarah decided to let destiny in the form of Anna just take its course. She handed herself over to Anna in complete trust that she would come to no harm. Anna dressed her in red lace, bringing out the blackness of her long thick dark hair and the absolute pallor of her skin. She put on a white dress herself and looked at the effect in the mirror. 

"Dressed to kill," she laughed confidently. 

Guggenheim Museum was filled with a throng of buzzing people, mingling up and down the famous sloping ramp and around the ground floor where the drinks were served and a small exhibition displayed. Sarah didn't know the artist, but found his few large paintings slightly alarming. They somehow reminded her of labyrinths, covered as they were with circular splashes of bold colors. When they arrived, there was a press conference going on and some TV-station recorded the session. Anna greeted a lot of people and introduced Sarah, but Sarah couldn't afterwards remember any names. The evening was a blur to her and deep down inside the anticipation grew when she thought about her coming meeting with Jareth. 

Anna brought Sarah to the top of the spiraling ramp under the large glass dome. There she took Sarah by the hand and turned to her. 

"You must concentrate now," she said. "Think hard of the Labyrinth or of Jareth and look around for any feature that's here now but wasn't present when we entered." 

Sarah closed her eyes but didn't know what image to focus on since she didn't know what Jareth's castle or garden looked like today. Instead, she thought of him. Then she opened her eyes and looked around. At first, she couldn't see any difference at all. But after a while, she saw a painting on the wall that she hadn't seen before and that was quite different from the others. 

"Yes," Anna said, "that's the opening. Let's go." 

"But what will the others say?" Sarah inquired. 

"They will not see us; even right now we are already invisible to them." 

Anna led Sarah to the painting and touched it lightly. Sarah saw the painting sway open to the side just like a door. In front of them was the same dark passage that had scared her so much in her own bathroom a couple of weeks ago. This time she dared enter it holding on to Anna. 

********** 

Before Sarah knew it, she was standing in a lovely garden full of trees and bushes. It was night, but the air wasn't cold, and it was filled with the balmy scent of many flowers; Anna gently pressed her to move on and when the trees and the bushes cleared, the castle unexpectedly came into view. It was awesome and beautiful, but not looking like Sarah remembered it. This made her think more of an English 18th or 19th century castle, embedded in green foliage. They could see lights in the large windows on the second floor. 

When they came near the entrance, Sarah felt someone tugging at her dress, and she looked around startled but at first she didn't see anyone. Then she looked down and realized that it was a little goblin, holding on to her skirt. 

"Take you to the King," he said and unceremoniously dragged her along upstairs. 

Anna followed behind. The entrance hall was huge and full of shadows, and silence enveloped them. The little goblin urged them upstairs. The second floor was elaborately decorated with antique furniture, paintings and carpets, all glowing in the faint light. They saw a door slightly ajar at the end of the large upper room, and they approached it. The little goblin had disappeared without a trace when Sarah looked around. 

Anna pushed the door open and entered, taking Sarah by the hand, encouraging her to follow. They saw Jareth standing in front of a huge window in the dimly lit room. He was dressed in grey silk and black boots, and a small diamond chain kept a watch in place in one of his pockets. They advanced on the thick, expensive carpet almost without making a sound, yet he instantly turned around and gazed intently at them. Then a slow teasing smile curved his thin lips, and he raised his eyebrows. 

"What an absolutely gorgeous pair you are," he greeted them, "looking like two beautiful witches out on mischief! Was it a nice exhibition? I almost had in mind going there myself, but I couldn't deny myself the pleasure of waiting for you to find your way here." 

He left the window and began a slow tour around Sarah, who felt that she couldn't move. She tried to catch his eyes, but he wouldn't meet her gaze. Instead, he looked her up and down and made small appreciative noises. 

"I hadn't realized how well red suits you," he murmured, "the color of blood." 

Then he raised his head and made an almost imperceptible nod in the direction of Anna, and Sarah felt behind her that Anna silently left the room. 

Jareth approached Sarah slowly and finally locked his mismatched eyes into hers, and she felt her stomach tighten. She clenched her teeth and thought that she would never get used to his different moods; that she would never get used to not knowing in advance what to expect when she met him. He hadn't touched her, yet the nearness of him burned her skin. 

"You came here to ask me some questions, isn't that so?" He looked at her with cautious eyes as if he already knew what she was going to ask and had prepared the answers. Sarah made an effort to get out of his hypnotic stare and regain control over herself. She shook her head and went up to the window. 

"You have visited Toby without my permission and without me being present," she ventured at last. 

"Why should I seek your permission?" he asked behind her, "and what danger do you think Toby is subject to? As far as I know, nobody has wished him away again." 

At which Sarah blushed furiously and kept her face turned away from him. 

Then she whirled around and faced him. 

"Why?" she asked. "Why did you "write" a paper in my name and send it to my instructor? I'm so humiliated and feel such a cheat!" 

"It suited me," he answered coolly. 

"Suited YOU?!" 

She felt the heated anger in her throat. But before she could continue, he had approached her yet closer, and now he towered over her. His face was almost in shadows, but she could still see his mouth with lips tightly drawn over his teeth, and she could see his eyes glimmer at her in the semi darkness. 

"It doesn't suit me that you flunk your work on account of me. Too much attention would be drawn to you on account of failure to complete exams." 

"My work is MY work, and I don't want you to interfere with it," she interrupted.

"You seem to be forgetting that you belong to me now and the decisions, concerning what is best for you, are mine and mine alone." There was definitely an edge to his voice now. 

"Don't defy me Sarah," he whispered as he bent down over her and brushed his lips over hers. 

Then, before she had drawn her next breath, he was gone and the void he left was chilling. 

Sarah looked around confused and scared and realized that Anna was in the room again. 

"Come," Anna said, "we have to go back now." 

Sarah followed her without a word. However great her anger was because of Jareth's intervening in her life, she yearned to be with him and had secretly hoped that he would have asked her to stay. Now she was being sent away like a little girl, being punished for bad behavior, and she clenched her teeth again and swallowed her tears of frustration. 

The way out of the Labyrinth was of course not the same as the way in. That would have been too easy. Again Anna asked Sarah to concentrate on where she wanted to go, and as Sarah didn't want to go home to be alone with her thoughts, they decided to go back to the party. 

"Be careful though," Anna said with a little laugh, "there is a Guggenheim in Bilbao and one in Venice as well, and if you're not concentrating properly, you might end up there instead. These things happened to me over and over again when I started to go in and out of the Labyrinth in the beginning." 

********** 

The days that followed were filled with different social occasions that kept both Sarah and Anna extremely busy. It seemed that Anna led a very hectic social life in New York in comparison to her rather quiet and secluded life in New Orleans. But then again, Anna had once said to Sarah that New Orleans was the place she went to when she needed to go into hiding. 

In New York, Anna seemed to know all the right people to get into the right places, and Sarah followed her wherever she went, without asking questions. They attended fashion shows, went to theater premieres and charity balls. Sarah couldn't keep track of all new people she met. One or two of them seemed however to be special friends of Anna and these people she began to recognize. She felt though that Anna kept her at a small but significant distance from all these new acquaintances, and Sarah refrained from asking why, fearing that the answer might be that it was on a command from Jareth. 

She constantly thought about Jareth and tried to understand his reasons and motives, and she realized now, afterwards, that her visit to him most likely was due to an order from him to Anna to take her there. Yet she still didn't understand why he should feel this need to completely dominate her life into the smallest detail. 

When yet a week had gone by, Anna asked Sarah if she would mind being alone in New York for a couple of days. Anna had some urgent business in Europe, and she would be very happy if Sarah could stay in the penthouse in the meantime. Sarah didn't mind at all. It felt almost like a relief to have a weekend alone for a change after the hectic week that she had just lived through. 

********** 

Sarah followed Anna to the airport early Friday morning to wave goodbye, and then she returned directly to the penthouse. It was somehow an eerie feeling entering the now empty flat, which was so quiet that one could hear a needle drop to the floor. It almost seemed as if no one had ever lived there. To shake the feeling off, Sarah went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. She contemplated calling Dad and Karen but in the end decided not to; she knew that they would immediately start to ask a lot of questions that she didn't feel like answering just right now. She thought with a smile that this was the second occasion on which she was alone in one of the places where Anna lived, and she remembered how she rather shamelessly had searched the house in New Orleans and been rewarded with strange peeks into Anna's past. After just a slight moment's hesitation, Sarah began exploring the flat, well aware of the fact that she pried into private domains. But since Anna hadn't locked any doors or drawers, maybe Sarah was secretly encouraged to do so? She knew deep down in her conscience that she looked for traces of Jareth within Anna's life. She also soon discovered that there was none to be found here and even traces of Anna herself were absent. The flat was in a way very anonymous. ‘Maybe because she entertains here,' Sarah thought, ‘she doesn't do that in New Orleans.' 

Then she went up and out onto the roof for the first time. It thrilled and scared her. Up there among the roofs of the other skyscrapers with only the blue sky above her and the distant murmur of traffic way down below, it was like being in another and strange world. She couldn't keep herself from going to the edge of the roof and peek down on the streets far below her. Vertigo hit her almost at once and for safety's sake, she kneeled and held on to the frail railing before daring to take another look. The cars looked like matchbox toys, and the people milled about like ants on the sidewalks. When she felt the nausea well up in her throat again, she withdrew and sat down far from the edge near a ventilating shaft that rumbled quietly behind her. She saw traces of human activities around her when she looked closer. Near the opening to the stairs, which led into the building, was a small shelter with tools, and a chair was standing alone in the opening. 

Sarah left the roof and returned to the flat. It was but a short flight of stairs from the roof to the penthouse entrance, and she didn't have to take the elevator. Once back in the apartment, she went out onto the balcony. She understood what Anna meant by saying that it was an entirely different feeling being on the balcony compared with the roof. The balcony was so constructed, the brim being very wide, that you couldn't look down over the edge. You could only look out and around you at the spectacular townscape and the busy river. Sarah drew a deep breath, and her stomach settled at last. 

********** 

She didn't yet know what she was going to do with her weekend and decided that she at least would like to go shopping all by herself. Shopping was indeed one of her favorite pastimes. In the famous shopping palaces, she felt like a kid in a candy store. She was amazed at the amount of luxury being offered everywhere and the abundance of it. 

After having spent the better part of her afternoon in and out of stores and since it was now getting late, she felt like having a cup of coffee before going home, and she also wanted to rest her feet. She went into a small coffee shop not far from Bloomingdale's and ordered a large cappuccino. There were all kinds of people in the rather crowded place at rush hour, and Sarah didn't bother looking around at first. But then she heard a baby crying, and she saw a young mother at a table not far from the entrance. Her baby in the pram had started to howl in earnest, most likely because it needed a change of diapers. The mother kept looking at the door and didn't bother about her baby. Her eyes were glazed, she moved her hands restlessly, and there was an irritated frown between her eyes. Somehow Sarah got the notion that the mother was on drugs. ‘Some people just shouldn't have babies,' she thought with a sigh, and then she forgot all about the incident when leaving the coffee shop to have a last go at Bloomingdale's. She wanted to have one more look at the lingerie department. 

When she was finally done with her shopping and reached the ground floor of the big department store, she heard a great commotion going on near one of the elevators. A woman was screaming and crying, and she heard the security guards talking rapidly in their walkie-talkies. A crowd had gathered, and Sarah joined to see what had happened. She instantly recognized the young mother from the coffee shop. In front of her was the now empty pram. Sarah stared at it and the mother and she involuntarily began to look around. People in the crowd kept gesticulating and shouting advice. One had seen the pram in the Ladies Room, at that time the baby was still in it. Another had seen it in the elevator, and then the pram was empty. The mother was incoherent and very clearly under drug influence by now. Sirens from police cars could be heard approaching. 

Then Sarah saw the little creature with the baby in his arms, standing behind a pillar not far from the elevator. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to shout, but not a sound escaped her. She realized with mounting fear and exasperation that she was the only one on the entire ground floor that could see the goblin with the child. ‘If I can't say anything,' she thought, ‘I can at least act,' and she started towards the pillar. But although she wanted to run, her feet wouldn't move faster than at a very slow, leisurely pace. The goblin caught sight of her, and he vanished into the pillar with the baby in his arms. Sarah's knees almost buckled under her. ‘I have to get away from here,' she thought wildly, ‘or they might start wondering about my reactions.' Somehow she managed to ease her way out of the now totally crowded lobby and well out on the street, she hailed a cab and headed back to the penthouse as soon as possible. She shivered visibly during the whole ride. The cabdriver kept looking at her in the mirror, but he didn't say anything, maybe he thought she was ill. 

Back in the quiet apartment Sarah kept pacing the floor. She was still extremely upset, and she took a small glass of whiskey to try to settle her nerves. The sun had set and dusk enveloped the skyscrapers around her; she felt as if she couldn't breathe inside the flat and impulsively, she decided to go up on the roof. Up there it was almost quiet, and it was getting dark quickly. She could even see the first stars in the sky. Then she became aware of that she wasn't alone. She saw a man sitting in a chair by the tool shed; it was a young man in old and worn clothes and when he saw that she noticed him, he rose and started moving towards her. She immediately regretted her decision to go up on the roof and turned at once to go back to the flat but realized soon enough that she wouldn't make it to the stairs before he reached her. 

"Hi," he said, "didn't expect such nice company here at this time of the day. No one usually comes here in the night except me. Wanna share a joint?" 

He held out what looked like a sordid and partly crumbled stick to her. She shook her head and pressed her arms into her stomach as if this simple gesture could provide her with all the safety in the world she needed now. The stranger moved around her in circles, and she could hear him mutter to himself. Then he closed in on her, and she could feel his foul breath on her face. 

"Should really try this stuff you know, it's the best," he insisted waving the now extinct joint in his hand. 

Sarah backed and he stumbled after her. 

"I just wanted some air," she pleaded in anguish, "can't you leave me in peace? I will soon go down, and you can have the roof to yourself again." 

But he wouldn't leave her in peace. He kept repeating that she had but come up on the roof, now she couldn't just leave like that. Finally, she sensed danger in the air. He wouldn't let her go, and she started to move backwards towards the stairs and tripped and fell, not seeing where she was going. Just as she fell, and the sky came into her view, she saw the huge bird soaring in over the rooftop. It was a great, white owl, and it headed directly for the man, now bent over her. The man was totally taken by surprise and took a few steps back. The owl did a turn and returned in incredible speed for another attack. The man began to shout and gesticulate as if hoping to scare the bird away, and at the same time he was moving towards the railing without noticing it. Sarah started to scream at the same moment as the bird came in for the kill, lunging forward, hacking the man in the face and flapping the wings rapidly. Sarah hid her face in her hands not wanting to see the fall, but she would carry with her the memory of the scream, forever imprinted on her mind.

She didn't know how she got to her feet and down the stairs to the flat, but once inside she slammed the door shut behind her and the silence hit her like a blow; the only sound she could hear being her own wild heartbeats. She approached the stairs within the penthouse to go down to the second floor, but froze with her hand on the railing. In the darkness at the bottom of the stairs, she saw him standing.

He disengaged himself from the shadows and began to move slowly up the stairs, coming clearly into her field of vision. The black leather suit he was wearing looked like a second skin. He had folded his arms tightly over his chest. She became acutely aware of the non-human side of him. He seemed to vibrate from the excitement of the recent kill, the skin drawn tight over his prominent cheekbones and his nostrils white and flaring. He looked directly at her. His eyes and teeth glimmered at her in the dark. He was hauntingly beautiful and dangerously sexy, and she could feel his desire for her, focused on her like a beam of light. 

"No," she moaned, "no, no. . ."

"Yes!" he whispered under his breath.

Mad with fear now and rising anger she made a futile dash down the stairs trying to get past him, but he caught her effortlessly. She wasn't going to give in that easily and decided to put up a fight. That evidently took him by surprise, and they both lost their balance and tumbled to the floor in the hall beneath the stairs. They fought silently for a while, all tangled up in each other's arms and legs, their wild breathing the only sound to penetrate the silence. She tried to bite him and scratch him but to no avail. Finally, he got hold of both her hands and pinned them to the floor above her head with one of his fists. When he now had control over her, he shifted his weight over her body. She tried to jerk her hands free, but he held on easily not even using any force. Her breath came in uneven gasps, and her heart was hammering against his chest. He looked down at her with half-closed eyes, dark with desire. 

"You killed him!!" she managed at last between gasps of breath. 

"Yes," he smiled, flashing his pointed teeth, "I killed him for you. I'm not going to tolerate anyone or anything threatening you." 

She saw him lower his head towards her, and she was still fighting him, not wanting to give in, not wanting to be kissed now. 

But he kissed her. His lips were surprisingly soft, yet unyielding. He moved his hot mouth over hers and sucked her lips, forced them gently apart and inserted his hard tongue into her mouth. The taste of him drove her mad, made her shiver all over and a hot wetness flooded her. As if sensing this, he moved a knee in between her thighs and pressed it against her throbbing cunt. She moaned another ‘no' in his mouth, and she felt him smile against her lips as he kept on sucking and gently nibbling her, planting small bites at the corners of her mouth, licking his way from her chin down to her throat.

She twisted under him, fighting both him and herself now, trying in vain to free her hands. 

"And you took that baby too!" she sobbed. 

He lifted his head and took hold of her chin with his free hand, steadying her face, forcing her to look at him. His smile was vicious now, and she could see both arrogance and mockery in his eyes. 

"Don't tell me that has come as a surprise to you. That's what I do for a 'living,' remember?" 

She cried now; angry tears that trickled into her hair. He kissed her again, now hard and unrelenting, bruising her lips, making her lose her breath and gasp for air. Then he bent down over her and moaned softly in her ear

"I want to take you! I'm going to take you for as long as I want, I'm going to make you ache for me!"

Still holding her arms pinned to the floor with one hand he unzipped her jeans and eased them off her, not heeding her protests. With his free hand, he started to explore her, gently cupping her sex in his hand, feeling how hot and wet she was and she cried harder, because she couldn't hide how aroused she was and how hungry she was for him; he bent over her again and when she heard the sound of silk being ripped to shreds, she realized that he had torn her blouse with his teeth. Her nipples hardened when he wetted them and the cool night air licked her bare breasts.

He hadn't removed any of his own clothes, and the leather in his jacket grated and burned her skin when he pressed himself against her. Her arms ached from being pinned to the floor, and finally he let go of them, but he didn't release her. Instead, he straddled her hips with his strong thighs, now having both his hands free. He bent down over her and began licking her all over her body just like a big cat and at the same time he gently pinched and tugged at her nipples until they throbbed with pain and pleasure, sending waves of pre-orgasmic twinges down to her swollen vulva. When he was sure of that she wasn't going to fight him any longer or try to run away, he eased up on his hold over her and increased his caresses and fondling. He caressed her slowly and unhurriedly with his hands, kneading her breasts, parting her legs, feathering unbearable touches to the inside of her thighs. She still cried, her face all wet from tears, but the crying was as much due to pleasure now as to the fact that he had defeated her; that she had to admit that she had given in to him in the end.

He played her like an instrument, kissing her, sucking her lips and tongue at the same time as he gently began to move his fingers ever so lightly over her body, hardly touching her at first, seeking out the points most sensitive to his touch. Her violent shuddering reactions to his caresses told him where to concentrate. He found an extra sensitive spot on the inside of her thighs, near her mound. When he stroked her there, she almost came for him. Moving over to the other thigh, he just accidentally brushed over her swollen sex, and she bucked her hips, trying to stay in contact with his hand, moaning when he moved on. He found that circling the contours of her breasts made her achingly aroused, and her nipples turned to hard buttons when he wetted them with his tongue and toyed with them. His hands became more urgent. He moved them tightly and hard over her ribcage until he reached her hips that he gripped pulling her body towards his. She could feel her inside melt when he kissed her stomach with open mouth, hot and wet, fucking her navel with his tongue. Then his hands moved on to her opening, lightly fingering the folds and then seeking out the clit that stood out hard between them; he started flicking his thumb rapidly over it, getting his hand soaked in her juices. He went down on her, licking her clean and then suddenly, savagely, he took her clit in his mouth sucking it hard. She started moaning incessantly, crying and moaning, and then she jerked violently as he inserted two fingers into her tight, hot wetness, finding the spot in the roof of her cunt giving the most pleasure. He massaged it with his fingers until she spasmed around him and came in a whitelight orgasm while he sucked and fondled her. He didn't let go of her until it had finished.

Then he got on his knees and freed his hard, swollen cock. She began to shiver when he spread her, opened her up. And the breath was sucked out of her when she felt his cock slide into her in one savage thrust, a groan escaping his lips. He deliberately fucked her slowly and deeply now, going just a little bit deeper and harder with every stroke, his hips moving at an unhurried pace. When she started to shudder helplessly, he thrust all the way in and buried his hardness in her, holding still while she came in a series of violent orgasms. And then she sensed that he too was near his climax. He gripped her hips tightly and painfully and pressed his pelvis in between her thighs, up against her cunt. Unmerciful in his savagery, he pushed himself so deep inside that it almost hurt and as he released in her, holding still again, his throbbing twitching cock filled her with hot burning liquid over and over again, and he screamed in pleasure and agony. Then he rolled off her body and fell on his back to the floor, ripping open his leather jacket, exposing his chest, blank with sweat. He turned to her immediately and gathered her in his arms, seemingly not wanting to leave her deserted in the cold. She finally put her arms around him and accepted being drawn into his embrace. The silence around them was deafening.

**********

Jareth finally got up from the floor. He lifted Sarah in his arms and carried her to the bathroom. With an impatient gesture, he removed his clothes and filled the Jacuzzi with warm water and slipped both Sarah and himself into it. He leaned back and closed his eyes, holding her above the water with one of his arms, cradling her close to his body. Sarah felt her aching muscles slowly relax in the gently bubbling water. She also closed her eyes after a while. They still hadn't said a word to each other.

‘If I try to talk or if he starts talking now, I'm going to cry,' she thought and felt the burning tears under her closed eyelids. It was as if she had conveyed her feelings to him without words, because he tightened his grip on her and started caressing her neck under the hair that flowed around her head in the water like seaweed. She tried to handle the outrage and the pleasure inside her at the same time, but it bewildered and scared her and she didn't know how. She could feel him clench his jaw, and his muscles tensed like wires in his body. All of a sudden he got on his knees in the water, and he took her by the shoulders and shook her. 

"Look at me!" he shouted. "Look at me! Do you think you're the only one to be had in this relationship? Do you think I WANTED to fall in love with you? Oh God. . ." 

He closed his eyes over his rage and desperation, and he locked her into his arms with a power that could have crushed her ribcage, hadn't he relaxed his hold on her a little when on an impulse she quickly moved her head towards his throat and kissed the beating pulse there. It took him by surprise and he fell with her into the water, kissing her hungrily all over her face. She tried to calm him down and started to move her hands lightly over his chest. She leaned into him and took one of his nipples in her mouth, gently sucking on it. Although he released his hold on her, it didn't calm him down. With a low moan deep in his throat, he threw his head back, and she felt his cock harden against her stomach. She hadn't realized how very sensitive to touch his nipples were and when she found that out, she couldn't have enough of them. Then she lathered her hand with soap and began to lightly finger and fondle just the head of his powerful erection. She knew she didn't have to apply any pressure, and she didn't have to rub his hard shaft to give him the almost unbearable pleasure, she was administering to him now; no big movements at all, just the tiniest most delicious touches. He let go completely and he could have sunk to the bottom of the jacuzzi, hadn't she stopped him. He didn't hold back but abandoned himself to the torture of her caresses, and he came almost instantly in the most violent orgasm she had witnessed; eyes tightly shut, mouth open with a silent scream and his cock twitching in her hand.

**********

They slowly crawled out of the water at last, totally exhausted physically and mentally. Sarah still couldn't talk to Jareth. She didn't realize until afterwards that she was in a state of shock. She had an incredible need to be close to him, to feel him, to touch him as if she could only communicate with him in this primitive manner for the moment. He seemed to understand this without words and didn't let go of her. With a graceful gesture of his hand, he procured clothing for them, a linen shirt and jeans for himself, a soft warm bathrobe for her, and he put a bottle of wine on the table and lit the fire in the fireplace. Had it been on a different occasion she would have delighted in his magic, but tonight she just accepted it as an obvious part of the proceedings. Then he cuddled up with her in the corner of the sofa, putting her in between his legs, drawing her body close so that she rested against his chest. She closed her eyes only to see the images from the roof behind her eyelids and hear the awful scream inside her head. With a start, she opened her eyes again and looked wildly about. 

"Shhhh. . ." he whispered in her hair. "Everything is all right. I'm not going to let anything hurt you." 

Panting in small gasps and with cold sweat covering her face, she fell back into his embrace. He managed to persuade her to drink some wine. It was good and sweet and quickened the blood in her veins.

Sarah slept a little in his arms and when she woke with a start it was past midnight, and she noticed that he had put on the TV and that he was watching "Casblanca" with Bogart and Bergman. She felt somehow that all violence had left the room, both the violence connected with death and the other kind related to sexual desires. She couldn't describe how she felt the difference, but the air was lighter to breathe and as she rested against his chest, she felt his warmth but he was not burning her with his presence. When he felt her stir he looked at her, 

"Does the TV bother you?" he asked quietly. 

"No," she answered, speaking for the first time in several hours, "how come you're watching TV?"

"It's very relaxing," he smiled at her in amusement, "don't you watch TV when you need to unwind?"

"Yes, but I didn't think you had TV in the Labyrinth."

"I have access to any kind of technical wonder I could wish for, you'll be amazed." His laughter was a low rumble in his chest. 

He offered her some more wine and urged her to drink. Not having eaten anything since lunchtime, the wine went to her head, and she fell back against his breast again. He decided that she needed something to eat and said that he was going to hunt in the kitchen for whatever was there, but when he rose and untangled himself from her, she panicked and wouldn't let go of him. He looked patiently at her as if looking at a child that was particularly troublesome when prompted to go to bed. Then he picked her up and carried her out into the kitchen and put her down on the sink while he looked for food. She knew well enough that he could have set at table in front of her worthy of a king, but she also knew that it amused him to do things in "the standard way" as he sometimes referred to it. He found some cold chicken and coleslaw salad in the refrigerator and brought it to her. Sitting on the sink, she wrapped her legs around his waist and drew him close to her body. She let him put tiny morsels of food in her mouth and obediently drank the wine he offered her. Then, without any warning, she began to cry again. He didn't ask why and he didn't try to stop her. He let her rest her head against his shoulder, and he rocked her gently in his arms. When she had recovered a little, he lifted her in his arms again and carried her to the bedroom. 

"You will have to sleep properly," he said. 

She got frantic and locked her fingers in his shirt. 

"Don't go, don't leave me," she cried in panic, "I can't bear to be alone, I'll die!" 

He sighed and sat down on her bed. Then he removed their clothing, gently but firmly motioned her to lie down and slid into the bed close behind her, spoon-fashion, her buttocks curved into his hips. Not until he put his arm over her body, securing her in his embrace, did she fall asleep.

She woke with a slight start a couple of hours later with the echo of screams in her head. Her heart was fluttering fast, and she felt a great anxiety. It was still dark in the room, but when she could feel that he was still there behind her, she quieted down and relaxed with a sigh against him. He was sleeping, and she could feel his half-erect penis between her legs. She tightened herself around him and sensed the wetness in her sex that the mere contact with him triggered. 

"I want you inside," she whispered, "take me." 

She brought her hands down between her legs and touched him lightly, flicking her fingertips over the head of his cock and was instantly rewarded with feeling his erection grow in her hands. He stirred behind her, but she wasn't sure of whether he was awake or not. She lifted her free leg enough to manage to guide him into her throbbing cunt, sliding down over him, crying out softly when hit by the blissful feeling of being filled with him. His arm that had rested heavily over her came to life, and he moved his hand searchingly over her body, letting it come to rest over one of her breasts. His movements were lazy and sleepy, but he was definitely awake now. She felt him move closer to her, putting his lips against her shoulder, kissing her as he murmured hardly audible endearments to her. She couldn't see him, but she divined the catlike grin on his face. As he increased his rhythm and his strokes became more urgent and deeper, he took a firm grip of her hips, and she gave herself over to the oncoming orgasm as if letting go into a free fall. She fell and fell, into him into herself, closing her eyes, feeling him filling her with his juices, hardness and softness combined, urgency and relief at the same time. Part of her mind realized that she experienced falling from the roof but that she wouldn't touch the ground, being saved by his wings.

**********

The moment Anna walked into the flat, she realized that something fatal had happened. She went straight out to the balcony where Sarah was sitting, unmoving, with New York Times in her lap and staring unseeing out into the void. It was Sunday afternoon and the weather was sultry and oppressive, a storm looming over the city. Anna went up to Sarah and sat down in the chair opposite her. She had to touch Sarah to bring her out of her stupor. 

"What's happened?" Anna asked anxiously. 

Sarah turned her big sad eyes towards her and answered quietly in so many words, "Jareth has killed a man because of me." 

They looked at each other in silence for what seemed an eternity. 

Then Sarah proceeded to tell Anna about the abduction of the child — the incident that had started the chain of events — and she described in detail what had happened up on the roof. She left out her own encounter with Jareth in the penthouse later in the evening, that meeting being too private to disclose. 

"And look here," she added opening the paper, "there is a little note on page 15 in New York Times about a man falling from the roof in the city and that they don't suspect any crime, the man being under drug influence. Then they go on with a short discussion about how the house-owners often neglect maintenance of such areas of their houses as roofs and cellars. That's all! And about the baby, not even a line." 

She buried her head in her hands. 

"What shall I do?" she whispered, not directing her question to Anna in particular. 

They sat in quiet for a while again. Anna hadn't made any comments as if waiting for Sarah to speak and to come up with suggestions and solutions. 

In the end however Anna said, "I've got a full week ahead, and you are welcome to come along as usual but if you don't feel up to it, I don't mind. You just do as you please. And of course you are free to stay as long as you like." 

Sarah nodded but didn't answer.

However, Sarah joined Anna that evening after some hesitation. Anna was going to a small club in the Village where, by special invitation, she was going to attend a performance by a famous New York Underground rock group. Sarah thought that the music would deafen the voices in her head. Instead, it underlined her vivid imagination as if providing a soundtrack for what had happened to her. When they finally returned home and went to bed, Sarah had wild and scaring dreams that woke her up at intervals. The day broke, and she still hadn't slept properly. ‘Too late for sleeping pills now,' she thought. Then she sat up in bed and calmed herself, exerting a great amount of willpower. ‘I HAVE to solve this issue,' she thought. ‘It's cowardly to give in and wail about what is lost and cannot be undone. I have to go on from somewhere and take the consequences of what I have done and find a platform from where I can continue.' 

She decided that she would do some very serious thinking and not shy away from any aspect of the problem, being it her own attitude or Jareth's. She also decided that she had to be alone to do this, absolutely and totally alone in an environment that was strange and unfamiliar to her, and she didn't want anything to distract her.

Sarah told Anna about her decisions and her plans the next morning, and Anna thought it was wise of her to pursue that line of action. Anna also gave her a key to the penthouse and said that Sarah could come back any time she wanted but that she would be happy if Sarah phoned her in advance, and Sarah agreed to do that.

**********

Sarah rented a car and headed west out of the city. She didn't know in advance where she was going, not knowing how far she could drive in a day. At first, she concentrated on the driving, it was long since she had been behind a wheel, and this simple action also took her mind off things. She stopped at small motels along the way and found that she slept dreamlessly during the nights out of sheer exhaustion. She didn't pick the motels where she stopped with care; she just took them as they came along. She didn't seek company but occasionally she could spend a couple of hours with the truck drivers over a shared dinner.

As the days went by, she found that she could start thinking about her problems without feeling the white, hot pain that had scorched her earlier. The car was an excellent place where to think she found. One morning, she reached the area of the Great Plains. She had never been there, and the beauty of the scenery took her breath away; she had never thought that the vast prairie could look like a green-golden sea with an endless sky above. She finally felt the urge to stop for a while and headed for the nearest small town and checked into its only motel. When asked how long she wanted to stay, she couldn't give a precise answer, but the owner didn't seem to mind, and he didn't show any curiosity about her. He asked her to pay in advance for a couple of days, and was content with everything when she did.

After a small and rather uninspired dinner, Sarah went to her room and for the first time since she had left New York, she had a faint feeling of Jareth's presence; she didn't see him though. She sat down on the porch outside her room and forced herself to face her situation, and she came to the conclusion that she loved Jareth without any reservations and that nothing either she or he had done, or could do in the future, would change this fact. She also recognized that she sincerely believed that Jareth loved her. But she admitted for the first time to herself that she had come to realize that this fact didn't make Jareth a better being, a "nicer" or more "good" person. She also realized that she would never be able to change him in this respect. Jareth had too much power in him for that. It came to her as a revelation that she couldn't judge Jareth with earth-standards. He simply lacked moral in the way she and her fellow humans interpreted that word. Not so that he was immoral. One could rather say that he was amoral in the sense of being unrestrained. He judged his actions only according to what was best for himself and therefore best for his kingdom and subjects. It was a question of pure survival and a non-human feature in him. Like a dominant lion, he was prepared to fight for his territory and his group until death. He had once said to her that he was prepared to kill for her and to die for her, and now she finally knew what that meant, to the exact word to be precise.

The evening slowly enveloped her. It wasn't cold, and she stayed yet another hour on the porch. There was more to face and contemplate, and she had set her mind to do it all tonight. She knew she had caused a terrible and irrevocable difference to her life when she had entered his world in the incident in New Orleans. She had done it with the same impulsiveness as when entering the Labyrinth, not thinking at all about the consequences, and she knew that Jareth was very upset with her because of this. He had implored her to be fully aware of her choices when she made them. She didn't exactly know all the details about her new life, but she had already been made aware of the hard consequences of her choice. Yet to come was to face the fact that she would most likely be very old compared to earth-standards, and eventually she would have to explain why to her family. However, it would take a considerable time before anyone would really notice, and she decided to postpone the confrontation concerning this issue with her family until later, at least she wanted Toby to be older before she told him.

**********

So sure was she that she had come to terms with all the problems and finally cleared her mind that she in earnest expected to find Jareth in her room when she went back in there. But the room was empty, and there wasn't a trace of him anywhere. She felt greatly disappointed and bewildered, and the old anxiety came back. ‘He must know by now that I desperately want to see him, that I miss him and long for him,' she thought. 

"Jareth?" she called softly but she couldn't feel his presence in any way. 

She somehow slept through the night, and after that followed two totally blank days. She sat in the bleak motel room as if paralyzed and couldn't bring herself to do anything. When the third night came, she knew she would be unable to sleep, and she cried in her distress. When she had recovered somewhat, an idea, a thought, started to form in her head. ‘If he won't come to me, I will go to him. There is nothing to stop me now. I can go into the Labyrinth on my own. At least I will be able to ask him face to face if he still wants me or not.' A fever seized her, and she dived into her memory to recall exactly how Anna had performed the transition. She remembered that she was to concentrate on Jareth and then look around for a feature in her surroundings that was new, that she hadn't seen or observed before. She closed her eyes and brought forth the mental images of him, and thought with great concentration about him for a long time; then she slowly opened her eyes. The room around her looked exactly as she had seen it earlier. She couldn't find any new features in there. She went out on the porch, and when she found nothing there, out into the small garden surrounding the motel. There, at the back of a small green patch, she found a little tool shed that she didn't remember from before. She approached the tiny, wooden hut with great care, and when she took hold of the handle to the door, it swung open silently, and in front of her was the hidden dark passage. She ran into it, fearing that the door might otherwise slam shut in her face.

It was night in the Labyrinth too. She shivered with fear and the garden she found herself in, didn't look as pleasant and inviting as it had done on her last visit. It looked sinister and scaring, dark and barren; the wind was sighing through the trees, and she stumbled forward, hoping that she would soon reach the clearing where she could see the castle. Finally, she got there, and she saw the castle looming in the distance. Also the castle looked different tonight and Sarah remembered what Anna had said to her about the Labyrinth forever changing its form and appearance. The castle was in total darkness, and she couldn't see a single light in any of the windows. ‘Suppose he isn't here at all?' she asked herself in anguish. ‘Suppose I have come in vain?' She couldn't linger in the cold but ran towards the entrance. 

The door seemed to be overpoweringly heavy, but it opened easily enough when she touched it. The huge entrance hall was empty and dimly lit, deep shadows filling the corners. She hastened upstairs but also the great hall on the second floor was empty and in semi darkness. She was so scared now that her whole body was shivering and her teeth clattered; she thought she heard a sound and turned quickly, but nothing moved behind her. Then she went into the room where she had encountered Jareth on her last visit, but also this room was empty and quiet. She paused for a moment to catch her breath and contemplate on what to do next. The only sound she could hear was her own heartbeats. Then she saw the opening, partly hidden behind a curtain, at the end of the room. It seemed to be a staircase leading upstairs. She entered the stairs without hesitation; there wasn't really any other place where she could go now. The stairs opened up onto a small landing, and she could see only one door at the end of the corridor. She approached it cautiously and opened it and stumbled into a large room, beautifully and expensively decorated. She saw the canopied bed and she finally saw him and she realized that she had entered his bedroom. He had his face turned away from her, and he seemed to be sleeping; she slowly went up to the bed and just stood there beside it, her arms pressed into her stomach and her head bowed, her whole body in anguished cramp. But he turned his head, and she felt that he was wide awake and had been so all the time. He reached for her and took a firm grip of her hip and drew her towards the bed. 

"What took you so long?" he asked softly.

When she continued to stand rigid by his bedside, he got up and stood before her naked, and he looked at her for a while. There was nothing erotic about his nakedness at this moment; he looked almost regal in a way that she couldn't describe, reminding her of a Greek statue, his pale skin faintly luminescent in the moonlight that shone through the window. Then he came very close to her, and he pulled her into his embrace. She cried out, a cry of genuine pain, as if something had finally broken inside her. She threw her arms wildly around him as if she was drowning, and he was the only one that could save her. Her knees began to shake and gave away, and he lifted her up in his arms and laid her down on the bed. He kneeled beside her and started to remove her clothes. When he had undressed her, he once more took her into his arms and again she cried out. He stroked her hair and whispered soothingly in her ear

"It's over. Don't cry my darling, don't cry." 

At last she began to unwind, the warmth emanating from him slowly seeping into her. She knew that no place on earth — either on the ground or under it — felt more secure to her than being in his arms. It had always been like that, right from the start, from the moment he had shared her bed for the first time up until now. She felt she could lie close to him forever, in contact with his soft skin, feeling his heartbeats, and the world could collapse outside for all she cared. She felt that she wanted to explain about her journey and all the thinking she had done in the meantime, but before she could open her mouth, he lightly put a finger over it and whispered 

"Not now, we will talk later, perhaps tomorrow or the day after tomorrow." 

And she stopped trying and rested her head on his breast, nose and mouth in close contact with his skin so that she could taste him and inhale his scent. She finally felt the blissful sleep wash over her, and she didn't resist it. Soon she slept like a baby in his arms, and he lay looking at the window over her head with dark, soft, peaceful eyes.

She surfaced a couple of hours later to the sensation of feeling his lips brush searchingly over hers and his already powerful erection pressing into her stomach. She opened her eyes wide, and a delicious ripple of anticipation traveled through her whole body, and she moved closer to him and put her hands at the small of his back pressing him into her body. When he felt that she was awake he rolled her over on her back and covered her body with his. 

"I can't help it," he murmured against her mouth. "I can't be this close to you not wanting to possess you. I want to have you," he groaned licking her mouth before kissing her. 

She met him halfway and tentatively inserted her tongue in his mouth. He continued kissing her for a long time, tasting her, feeling her, probing her. She felt her nipples harden and ache with the need to be touched, and she got hold of one of his hands and moved it down to her hot and wet sex. 

"I'm going to make you go mad with desire," he whispered. "Until you come. I want to see you come."

"We can be two to play this game," she whispered back to him and raked her nails gently over his chest, toying with his nipples on the way down to his crotch. 

He arched his back in pleasure exposing as much of himself to her caresses as possible. Then they melted together again touching, licking and biting everywhere. He sat up in the bed and turned her around so that she had her back against his chest, and the whole front of her body open for his hands to explore. He gently cupped her breasts and squeezed them until she moaned. Then he ran his fingers over her ribcage down to her wet cunt. He dipped two fingers into her, moistening them, and moved them in lazy circles around her opening, gently flicking her clit as he moved over it. Her breath came in small moans now, and she squirmed under his delicate touches. When she started to come he put his fingers back into her and gently but insistently pressed them against the roof of her cunt, while he rubbed her clit with his thumb. She came in a long, sweet, undulating orgasm that never seemed to end, and then she fell exhausted into him.

When she had recovered a little, she turned around in his arms and looked up at him and into his teasing eyes. 

"It's not fair that you should have all the fun," she said and cradled his hard cock in both her hands. 

She put her tongue to the purple head and applied tiny licks to it, catching the clear drop of liquid that formed there. His hips involuntarily moved with her every touch, but he didn't want to come just yet, so he caught her hands and rolled around in the bed with her and she found herself trapped beneath him again. 

"Oh, you're such a bastard!" she exclaimed laughing, but he silenced her with his hot mouth, devouring her, pressing his teeth against hers. 

Then he teased her with his hardness just probing the entrance of her sex. It drove her wild, and she dug her fingernails into his back, trying to make him enter her at last. Instead, he withdrew a little and started running his hands hard over her whole body. He squeezed her breasts and the soft flesh at the inside of her thighs, fingers moving close to her opening, but never touching it. He tugged at her nipples and bit them just hard enough to make her cry out in pleasure and pain. She was a shivering aching blur of desire for him now, and she didn't want to wait any longer. 

"Take me," she gritted through her teeth. "Take me!" 

She looked wildly into his face, at his beautiful smiling mouth and his hooded, unreadable eyes burning with a strange light. Then he slid into her. It wasn't a hard thrust, just a very soft and gentle movement but it drained her of all fury and made her go totally weak, consumed with liquid fire. Helpless in her throes of pleasure she exploded in a series of orgasms. He held on to her shaking body, moving inside her very slowly and deliberately. At last she fell back in the bed all spent. He hadn't come yet and seemed to enjoy prolonging his own sweet torture. He kept his huge erection in her throbbing cunt, while she slowly drifted to the surface of her consciousness. And when she moved her hands searchingly over him, wanting him again, not getting enough of him, he slowly and lazily began to increase his rhythm, filling her with long, heavy strokes. It felt as if he could go on like this forever. But in the end his desire for relief overpowered him. He moved one of his hands in between them, down to her cunt, and teased her clit while he fucked her, hard and fast now. She rode the wave with him, melting into the sexy sensation of feeling his need for her. Then he almost stopped, and they were suspended in mid-air for a millisecond. His body went rigid and pushed a high, sharp cry out of him and his eyes rolled back into his head before he closed them tightly. He impaled her with his swollen cock, and she felt it stiffen and pulse inside her, filling her again and again with hot, wet liquid. His relief was hers too, and she let the final shuddering orgasm flood her before they came to rest at last. She fell asleep with his cock securely buried inside her, not wanting to let go of him.

When she woke up the next time, the daylight filled the room. Her heart skipped a beat in initial fear, because she didn't recognize her surroundings at first. She looked in wonder at the tasteful furniture and the beautiful paintings on the walls, and then she remembered where she was and immediately turned her head to search for him. Her heart and body were filled with instant joy when she found him sitting in the bed beside her, his back turned to her. She was so used to finding him gone in the mornings that she almost doubted her eyes, and she had to touch him ever so lightly to feel that he was real. He put his warm heavy hand on her, caressing her body gently. But he didn't turn around. She sensed with a short jolt of alarm that he wasn't relaxed, but concentrated and tense. 

"Stay with me," he said in a hardly audible voice, "at least for a little while. Try me out, give me a chance." 

She stopped breathing for a fraction of a second while the thoughts rushed through her head. This was the first time ever that he had pleaded with her. Whatever he had wanted from her he had taken, with or without her consent. 

"Yes!" she whispered breathlessly and reached out and touched his hand. 

She saw a slight movement of the muscles in his back as if he slowly exhaled. Then he slipped into the bed, in between her legs, and put his head to rest on her stomach. She was never to see the expression on his face.

**********

Finally, they couldn't put off getting out of bed any longer and she yawned and stretched her limbs, feeling that she ached all over although not unpleasantly so. 

"I'm hungry," she said, "feed me." 

She heard him chuckle low deep down in his throat, and then he lifted his head and looked at her at last. 

"There is an old saying," he said, "that you have to take what's coming to you, if you choose to lie down with lions, but no one ever mentioned the lioness!" 

Then he got them out of bed and found a long silk robe for her to slip over her nakedness and chose a silk shirt and black tights for himself. 

"I thought that we might have breakfast in the library. It's one of my favorite places in the palace," he said. 

She nodded prepared to accept anything he proposed and feeling a thrill within her when she thought about all the new things about him and around him that she was going to discover. 

He took her by the hand and led her out of the room into the corridors that were like little labyrinths in themselves. It would take ages before she was to find the way on her own in this maze she thought. They passed the great hall on the second floor, this place she recognized at least, and then he opened a door that she hadn't observed before and pushed her gently inside the huge library. She had never seen a place like this before in her life. The ceiling was made of glass, and she could see the heaven above her. Then she looked at the room itself and saw the endless high bookshelves. How far they stretched and how large the room was, she couldn't tell. Some shelves contained books that seemed to be extremely old, and other shelves harbored literature of a seemingly younger date. She stopped in her tracks and voiced a silent ‘Oh' in surprise. He laughed and shook her gently. 

"Come, come," he urged her on. 

She noticed that they followed a passage between the shelves furnished with a red carpet on the floor and stored that piece of information in her mind. It might come in handy, should she ever lose her way in here.

They went farther into the room, and unexpectedly she found them standing in what appeared to be a rotunda. At least it was a round clearing in the room without shelves and books. Then she saw an old man at the desk. He was dressed in a long robe, somewhat looking like an old monk. He rose when they entered and made a deep bow in front of Jareth. 

"Master," he said, "I have been informed that you wish to take breakfast in the Orangerie. It's waiting for you." 

Then he bowed in the direction of Sarah and murmured 

"Your Ladyship is most welcome to the Library." 

Sarah was all confused by now and didn't know what to do, so she merely inclined her head and kept her silence. She observed that the old man had a feather-pen in his hand but on his desk was the latest model PC. 

"This is Ibn Ben Akbar," Jareth informed her, "he has been in charge of this library for as long as I can remember. I think he came here during my father's reign. Am I correct?" he addressed the old man. 

The librarian merely bowed again, and he didn't comment on the information concerning the hundreds of years that he had apparently spent among his books. Instead he pointed to his desk and said

"Master, when you have time, there are two new books that have arrived today. They are essays in the field of chemical warfare. Let me know when you are ready for them."

"Thank you Ibn, I will," Jareth answered, and then he turned to Sarah and the mischief was dancing in his eyes now. 

"Do you think that I'm allowed any days off in this place?" 

Then he brought her along to a room adjacent to the library, which evidently was the "Orangerie" that Ibn had mentioned. Sarah found that it was a greenhouse full of orange trees with glass walls permitting a view out into the garden beyond. There awaited them a sumptuous breakfast. They had their meal in silence for a while, and then Jareth answered her unspoken questions. 

"Whatever you would like to know, can be found in there," he made a gesture towards the library, "good or bad, necessary or superfluous. My so called Black Cabinet, for example, containing forbidden literature, would make the Vatican green with envy." 

He looked intently at her now. 

"You may not understand today why I wanted to show you this room first of all, but you will soon. I consider it the most valuable item in the whole palace."

"Apart from you of courses," he added and grinned at her. 

Sarah blushed and inclined her head trying to sort out all the various impressions that had poured over her. 

More immediate, commonplace and little problems surfaced though, and she lifted her head and looked anxiously at him. 

"What about the car and my luggage?" she asked, all at once remembering what she had left behind in the motel. 

"It's all taken care of," he replied calmly. 

Then she drew her breath wanting to put all her worries, her thoughts and her explanations in words to him, but again he put a finger to her lips and smiled softly. 

"Not today. You needn't explain anything. Maybe we will talk about it tomorrow or perhaps the day after tomorrow."


End file.
